


If Given The Chance

by Kari_Kurofai



Series: Maps Untraveled, Atlas Bound [5]
Category: My Engineer (TV)
Genre: Adopted Children, Adoption, Allusions to Reincarnation, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anniversary, Asshole parent, Autistic Character, Bigotry & Prejudice, Death of a Patient, Doctor Duen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, Medical Procedures, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Oral Sex, Original Character Death(s), Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:35:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 44,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26568886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kari_Kurofai/pseuds/Kari_Kurofai
Summary: "Can't I just sit with them a little while?" Duen asks. "Is that wrong? They don't have anyone, P'Thara." No one except each other, and right now they don't even have that for comfort, either. There are tears in his eyes, Duen realizes when his vision blurs, and he lifts a hand to scrub them away before they can fall. "I didn’t touch them very much," he insists, because it dawns upon him that Thara probably thinks he's breaking some kind of code of ethics. "I know that I can't let them imprint on my scent. I know. But I couldn't . . ."They're alone. They're alone.And knowing that is its own kind of agony, clawing at his insides until he feels like it will tear him apart from the inside out.Thara sets a hand on his shoulder, a thumb rubbing across Duen’s clavicle for a moment before he speaks. "I'm just worried that you're going to get your heart broken, nong," he whispers.Honestly, Duen thinks bleakly, he’s terrified of that too. "I'll be careful," he promises, every syllable of it thick on his tongue with the weight of silver.
Relationships: Duen Krisada Rattananumchok/Bon Sirikarnkul
Series: Maps Untraveled, Atlas Bound [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794442
Comments: 24
Kudos: 79





	1. Wolf at the Door, Stork on the Windowsill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For context reasons, you should have read the series, including the short stories collection, up through Only Two To Tango. 
> 
> And if you read the tags, no, it's not one of their kids. I'm not a fucking monster. If you're still concerned go one more paragraph down for specific trigger warnings 

There are just three boxes left in Bee’s room. The walls are bare of band posters, the shelves already absent of model cars, and the mattress of her bed stripped of sheets, left only with two carefully folded blankets in dinosaur prints deemed too childish for fresh adulthood. But she hasn't left yet, and Duen stands in the doorway, heart in his throat and breath held when he comes back from packing up the car to find her and Bohn sitting on the floor together. Bohn has her head tucked under his chin, a hand petting softly over the back of her hair, and every now and then he ducks down to rub his cheek over hers, almost like he can't help it. He’s not crying, but Duen can tell he's verging on it, might have shed a few tears already, because when he speaks his voice is raw. 

"You know you can call us if you need anything, right?" Bohn whispers. "Even if it's just to bitch about your classes, or campus food. I know nothing's gonna measure up to your phorh's cooking."

Bee chuckles. "Yeah. Okay."

"And if I hear anything about you not wearing your helmet on your motorcycle, I will come over there and skin you myself," Bohn adds.

She snickers again. "Where would you even hear about it? Do you have campus spies?"

"I might," Bohn warns. He’s quiet for a moment longer before his arms tighten around her, draw her just a little closer. "Thanks for letting your old dad hold you for a bit, bumble-Bee," he murmurs, almost too low to hear. "I know you're a big girl, but for me you'll always . . ."

He doesn't say it, let's the words die on the tip of his tongue, but Duen hears it anyways. And he’s sure Bee does too. They have four kids, but Bee was their first _baby_ together, and sometimes it feels like all they did was blink, and she went from just a thought, happy and surprised laughter spun out in a tiny apartment, to eighteen and graduated, ready for life on her own. 

"Are you gonna cry for a week like you did when Ben moved out?" Bee asks.

Bohn huffs, "I didn’t cry for a week-"

"He cried for a _month_ ," Duen corrects from the doorway. 

"Duen!" Bohn snaps, lifting his head from where he'd been nuzzling over Bee’s hair. "That was a fucking secret!"

"I have earned the privilage of being cussed in front of," Bee says, full of mock awe. "So this is adulthood."

Bohn levels her with a deadpan stare, "One of your first words was 'fuck.' We cussed in front of you when you were a baby, you just don't remember."

" _You_ cussed in front of her," Duen says, "I was a saint."

"She said your name _twice_ before you even noticed."

"That's fine, I'm four kids in and have never been thrown up on."

"But you did let her _steal a car_ , so-"

Bee holds up her hands, "Yes. Thank you. I know I'm amazing. Also, the car belonged to you so _technically_ I didn't steal anything." She leans in to give Bohn a quick squeeze and stands, dusting off the knees of her jeans and clearing her throat. "Anyways. Phorh, please tell me you didn't put my guitar in the back of the car."

"It's in the front seat," he assures. 

Whooping with a mixture of excitement and relief, Bee charges past to dash towards the foyer and the driveway beyond, one of the last boxes scooped up on her way. "Let's get going then!"

Duen tilts his head in the direction she's gone, listening for the car door opening and closing before he glances at Bohn, "You sure you don't want to come?"

His heart clenches harshly in his chest, hitches the breath in his lungs inaudibly when Bohn shakes his head, the smile he puts into place trembling at the seams. "Nah. I'll visit her in a few days, when she's all set up. And one of us needs to pick up Del and Day in a couple of hours." He says it as if it's easy, shrugging while he does so, but when he actually meets Duen's eyes they're brimming with tears. "Uhm, also," Bohn adds, to his credit only choking on the words a little, "she's totally right, and I'm about to cry, so I don't . . . It's a big day for her, you know? She doesn't need me there just to be a bummer."

Duen has his arms around him before he even finishes speaking, torn between a growl and a purr as he pulls them together. "You're not a 'bummer,'" he snaps. "You're allowed to cry, and if you think _I'm_ not going to cry . . ." He will. He absolutely will, the second he pulls away from the school and out of sight he'll park at the nearest fast food joint and bawl his eyes out at the steering wheel. Bee is his baby, too. 

Bohn’s hands clench in the fabric of his coat over his shoulder blades, face tucked in the crook of his neck so that Duen can feel every wet and wavering inhale and exhale that echoes through him. "Did we do okay?"

"We did," Duen assures. "You were right, we did our best, and she turned out great."

"I mean, I think I turned out _awesome_ , but . . ."

Duen sets his chin on Bohn’s shoulder, lifting an eyebrow as he meets Bee’s gaze where she's leaning on the doorframe, looking at her dark navy nails with faux nonchalance. "If you've only come back inside to sass, you can go right back out again."

Bee meets his raised brow with an identical one. "What? Kicking me out already? Alright, then I guess no one needs an extra goodbye hug, so I'll just be leaving-"

Unsurprisingly, Bohn releases Duen to practically fling himself across the room at her, almost tripping over the last two boxes on his way. "Bee!" He whines, burying his face in her shoulder again with a shake of his head, "Who taught you to be so mean?"

"You," Bee and Duen say simultaneously. 

"Dad, please don't get snot on my shirt," Bee adds after a moment. "All my other ones are already packed."

"Don't foil my plan to make you stay longer," Bohn hisses way too vehemently, and Bee shrieks and squirms out of his grip while he laughs, the sound as genuine as it is the tiniest bit broken.

~~~***~~~

Most of the time Duen loves his job. Thara owns a cozy little clinic, their main clientele consisting of families from the very neighborhoods they live in. The times they've had to dole out bad news are far outweighed by all the ones where the diagnosis has been good. Their days consist of both office visits and house calls, patients who have grown up or grown old in their care, known for so long that they're on a first name basis. His hours are long, but rewarding, made even more so by the life he comes home to.

But all the best things in the world have harsh realities, and the rare night he wakes up to his phone ringing with the ID of the clinic's emergency line on the screen always leaves his stomach in knots long before he answers it. 

"Fourteen car pile-up on the overpass," Thara says in his ear before he can even mumble a hello. "They're asking for extra hands at the hospital ER."

Duen blinks sleep from his eyes as quickly as he can. "I'll be there in twenty," he swears, already climbing out of bed. The line clicks, and he winces as he finds the time on the display, grimacing in the face of the white-lined 1:43 staring back at him. 

On the other side of the bed Bohn has lifted his head from where he's been curled around a pillow of Duen’s and one of Bee’s old dinosaur blankets she'd elected to leave behind. Duen sinks back down onto the mattress to reach out and run a hand through his hair, card it away from bleary eyes. "Emergency shift," he explains. "I'll text you an update when I can, but I don't know how long I'll be."

"S'bad?" Bohn whispers, a yawn escaping him on the tail end of the question. Duen doesn't miss the way his fingers curl the tiniest bit tighter in the fabric of the blanket, or the slight tinge of unease that taints the air. 

"An accident on the road," Duen says. "Hopefully not too serious, but they need a few extra people. Do you have a shift with Frong today?" Bohn nods, and relief seeps into Duen’s bones. Good. He hates to think of Bohn rattling around in the house while the kids are at school, especially with Bee’s room now empty and waiting for him to pace through. This is the ninth night in a row he's slept with his face buried in her blanket. Plus, if it seems like Bohn's having a particularly off day, Duen knows Frong will call him. 

Bohn is sleepily soft under his touch, purring quietly when Duen leans over him to peck quick kisses to his cheek, his lips, his ear. "Love you," his husband hums, fingers threading through the hair at the nape of Duen’s neck for a heartbeat before he releases him. "Don't work too hard."

"Ha ha."

Duen does a quick peruse of the house before he goes, a piece of toast made, snagged on the pop, and buttered before he checks in on Day, then Del, both sound asleep. He peeks into the bathroom too, draws out an orange and white bottle with efficient finesse, a trained eye satisfied that the correct amount of contents sits inside, and that no doses have accidentally been skipped. Regardless, he makes a mental note to get it refilled next week, ever wary of allowing it to go too low lest Bohn take it as a sign to wean off them before he’s ready. There's no shame in it, but Duen worries, more than he knows he probably should. As much as he wishes it, no amount of human affection and reassurance can replace a chemical that, for Bohn, has a tendency to falter. 

It takes him less than seven minutes and only a little bit of speeding to get to the local hospital, heart in his throat as he catches sight of the flash of ambulance lights in the night long before he parks. Thara wasn't exaggerating, there's at least a half dozen of them, a few with carriges double loaded, Duen observes as he strides past to report to the front desk. Whatever happened on the overpass was messy, and he fervently wishes for a moment that he was back in bed, asleep and dreaming of better things with Bohn tucked warmly at his side. 

But at the end of the day this was what he got his degree for. 

The nurse at the desk points down the hall after she checks him in, pinning a visiting doctor's badge next to his usual one on his coat. "Three doors down, on the left. They pulled one out of a twisted up wreck that's in cardiac arrest with bad internal bleeding."

Duen’s following the directions almost before they're finished being given, finding the indicated room with ease and toeing the already ajar door open. A doctor quite a few years his junior and a nurse that's definitely his elder are frantically rushing around the patient who, to Duen’s dismay as he hears the flatlined screech of the heart monitor, is already gone. The nurse is a bit more hardened, face grim to match the blood splatter on her polka-dot scrubs, but the doctor is teary-eyed, distressed and distraught, and when Duen enters he shudders on a too-wet breath. 

"What do I do?"

He looks fresh out of med school, Duen realizes, it's probably his first big emergency, maybe even his first unexpected loss. "You did everything you could," Duen assures, a quick glance at the nurse who nods. 

"No, I mean-" The doctor hiccups, eyes saucer wide. "Do we- it's not too late for an emergency operation, right? There's a window where-"

He's rambling, Duen thinks, panicking because it's a new situation. He’s about to suggest the kid take a breather, but the nurse sets a firm hand on his arm, tugs, and he glances down to actually look at the patient who's just passed. 

She can't be more than sixteen, but Duen would guess she's younger than that, fifteen, _fourteen_ , his dizzying mind suggests. Dark hair and eyes closed as if she's only nodded off to rest, only the pale pallor of her skin giving away the truth. Beneath a cut open shirt harsh and deeply internal bruising across her chest shows him the cause of death, though he barely notices it over the round swell of her stomach. Eight months, his mind screams at him, or nine. Survivable if they're _quick_. "Wheel her to the closest operating room," he orders, his voice shaking. "Find someone who's surgery trained and prep them."

They have _minutes_ , he thinks with mounting horror, exactly five before things get dire.

"I'm trained!" The doctor beside him exclaims. "I-I can do it!"

"Then go! Wash up!" Duen shoves at him, heart in his throat as the green doctor skitters ahead of them out of the room as ordered. "Help me wheel her there," Duen says to the nurse, who nods with a determined set of her chin.

Some days are hard, Duen knows, his job is never without its risks, its darkest hours where he finds himself staring at sights that remind him that not everything ends happy. But, he also knows, the very reason he chose this field was because he believes fiercely in the idea that the worst minutes of someone's life, even at the bitter end, should not be witnessed without at least a little hope. 

The young doctor is oddly bright eyed when Duen reaches him, a spark in his gaze as he rushes to lay out his tools. "Ever performed an emergency c-section before?" Duen asks as he snaps on a pair of gloves. 

"Does a cadaver count?" The kid asks, not a note of jest in his tone. He's already set a scalpel to skin, and Duen turns his eyes to the ceiling, fingers finding an already cooling hand on the table and squeezing. It's no comfort to her, of course, but he likes to think that, if there's an afterlife, the gesture holds the same weight he feels in his chest. "You're on catch duty," the young man adds after a second. "There's towels on the table behind you."

Surgery is _not_ Duen's forte, and it's been literal years since his student days of doing the obligatory rotations to even watch them, let alone actually practice one. Thara should have been here, he thinks bleakly as he lets go of the girl's hand to unfold a towel. He’s no surgeon either, but he's more experienced with emergency shifts, he'd at least make a better assistant. 

In his head the minutes tick by, four, five, his stomach somersaulting as it winds to six. "Hurry," he can't help but whisper. 

"You want to switch!?" The other doctor snaps. He apologizes as soon as he says it, a sharp grimace painting his features for a second before he drops his gaze to his task again. "Almost there. Ah! Here!"

The scalpel chatters back onto the tray, and Duen’s legs turn to relieved jelly as his ears catch a choking, but very much alive inhale. It's a tiny thing, Duen realizes as the baby is plopped into the towel draped over his hands, significantly under the weight that would be considered full term, and he’s befuddled for a moment until he hears the doctor yelp, a bizarre exclamation of, "Oop! Gosh! Fucking-" and he nearly slips on the tile past Duen as he fumbles to snag a second towel from the stack. "Not breathing!" He gasps, and Duen blinks as the squirming, undersized infant in his hands is traded out with _another one_.

And he’s right, the twin, fraternal he registers distantly, isn't breathing, and Duen barely takes a breath of his own before he whirls around to find what he's looking for. Suction should be enough, right? Surely. It's such a tiny thing, CPR wouldn't- He grinds his own frantic thoughts to a halt, the too-still form set on a flat-topped cart as he goes through the motions of clearing the airways, calm and quiet beneath the other twin's rising cacophony of wails. The skin isn't blue, he observes while he works, struggling on an inhale that threatens him with not yet earned grief, if he moves quickly there's still a chance-

The little chest beneath his fingers rises and he quickly tosses the instrument aside as the infant coughs, breathes, and then promptly shrieks. 

"Holy shit!" The other doctor exclaims. "We got both of them?"

Duen slumps where he stands, a hand resting over skin that, while sticky with blood, is blessedly warm with life. "Congrats," he grins. "You've earned your trauma badge."

"I don't want it," the kid returns immediately. He passes the second baby over as soon as he says it. "I'm gonna go call someone to come take them to NICU," he continues, peeling off his scarlet soaked gloves. "And then I'm going to go _throw up_ and _cry_."

Duen resolves to buy him a hundred coffees, or at least a Starbucks giftcard, and studiously keeps his attention on the squirming, shrieking lives gently cradled in his lap rather than the silence left on the table behind him.

~~~***~~~

The wizened little nurse has changed by the time Duen stumbles out of the NICU an hour later, her fresh scrubs sporting a pattern of flying pigs Duen doesn't want to contemplate the symbolism of. She has a single sheet of paper in one hand, and a paltry quart-sized ziploc bag containing a necklace, two rings, a thin wallet, and a cracked smartphone. Nausea roils in him as it sinks in what it is, and he steals himself to take them when she hands him both paper and bag with a clipped, "Nok's still in the bathroom," she sighs. "Poor thing. Still working on his sea legs, I don't know why he keeps asking for these ER shifts, the boy has no stomach for it."

Duen shrugs, "He handled himself well. And he succeeded," he adds. 

The nurse rolls her eyes. "It's not about success, Doctor," she squints at his ID, "Rattananumchock. It's about having a soft heart. Like you," she accuses, and Duen casts her a sheepish grin. "Nights like this break kids like you and Nok. You can’t cry over every soul you don't save, or you'll run out of tears and shrivel up into a husk of a person in less than a year." She gives his shoulder a slap much heartier than her size suggests she's capable of. "But you're right. He did good. Maybe I'll get him a jello from the cafeteria to soothe his stomach."

"Not a red one," Duen says knowingly.

The nurse just levels him with a deadpan stare, "The quicker he gets over it, the better equipped he'll be in the future."

He lets her go, the thin page and the tiny ziploc clutched in hand till he's alone in front of the nearest nurses' station. The attendant there spots what he's holding and gestures to the phone behind the counter, and Duen wheels a chair over to sit beside it. 

He tries not to look too closely at the things in the bag, jewelry that seems a step above the clothes she'd been wearing, a phone that looks like it ran out of charge long before the screen became cracked, a wallet of a designer brand that bears the wear and tear of being clutched too long. His eyes skim the thin sheef of paper, mouth settling into a grim line as he reads off the information that must have been collected from her ID, and then in turn a database of medical records. There's only one listed recent checkup, an alarming six months prior, and Duen reads it twice before he even dares to try the number for next of kin. 

It rings. It rings _nine times_ , and then drops to voicemail. Duen leaves the name of the hospital, their number, and a statement of how urgent it is that they’re contacted, but hangs up with cold resignation in his chest.

"She was just a little thing, huh?" The nurse at the station whispers, her eyes on the page in front of the phone. 

Duen squeezes his own shut, the bold DOB and DOD, just fifteen years apart, burned into his lids already. "Yeah."

The nurse is quiet for a long moment, enough time that when she taps him on the shoulder Duen almost forgot she was there. "I have another one for you, if you have time? Room 314. We need contact info from her, but she's pretty shell-shocked." She pulls out a file from the stack on the desk and passes it into his waiting hand. "I think . . . I think she was in the same car as . . ."

Oh. 

He thumbs the file open to glimpse the gist of the medical info already gathered. Seventeen, alpha female, three fractured ribs and a shattered kneecap. There's a brief description from the paramedic that had been on scene of the actual wreck, and Duen swallows past bile at the details of the car being flipped, the driver's side caved in. Fuck. "Has someone told her about her friend?" The nurse nods. 

Well, he supposes, at the very least he can lend some comfort. He's definitely more useful there than in triage, where he knows Thara has been all night.

The girl is sitting up in her bed when he eases the door open, hands in her lap and her hollow eyes fixated on the starchy white blankets beneath them. She jolts when the door clicks shut again. "You look like that other guy," she stutters out after only a moment of hesitation. 

Duen smiles, "Ah, you saw P'Thara? We're cousins." He pulls up one of the hard-backed chairs next to her bed. "Did he take good care of you?" She nods. "Good. I'm glad. I was hoping you and I could talk for a bit now, if that's alright." Another nod, and Duen sets his clipboard in his lap, a pen clicking in his hand. "Do you have a name?"

"Maimai," she whispers. "Hey, uhm . . . Is it true that Dia is dead?" 

"I'm sorry," Duen whispers, a better answer, he thinks, than the cold simplicity of a yes. 

Maimai nods again, her lower lip caught between her teeth. "She was . . . I took too much . . . Of something." She doesn't elaborate on the substance, and Duen doesn't care to know. Kids make mistakes, and he wants to believe that this one still has a long life ahead of her in which to forget and forgive them. "She said she'd drive me to the hospital just in case. In _my car_. And now . . ." 

"Where were you staying before this. Maimai?"

She swallows. "The shelter. Do you need the address?" Duen utters an affirmative and scribbles down the details as she gives them. "Can I ask another question?"

"As many as you'd like," Duen assures.

"Did . . . Uh . . . Did the babies . . ."

Duen pastes on his best smile, "They're alright. A little premature, and extra small because twins already have that tendency, but they’re fine. They'll be in NICU for at least a month, but I can take you to see them later if you'd like."

The speed at which she shakes her head surprises him a little. "N-no! That's okay. They're not mine," she adds, as if reading his mind. "She never told me who, but we weren't like that. She was my nong in school, before I got uh . . . Yeah," she draws off, grimacing slightly before she soldiers on. "We met again at the shelter. Did you . . . Did you call someone for her?"

"There was a number in her medical records for emergency contact," he confirms, unease coiling in his chest when she tenses. 

"Her phorh died when she was little," Maimai whispers. "And her mae is . . . If she actually shows up, don't let her tell you Dia was awful, or a delinquent or anything like me, okay?" It's said almost startlingly fierce, a hint of a growl not yet old enough to be tethered with experience. "She was a _good_ kid. She _was_." 

Grief, Duen knows, hits many people slowly. The world spins too fast for awhile, and then when it finally feels real, sinks in, it stops. Maimai sucks in a long, shuddering breath, her hands shaking as she brings them up to her face and buries her head in them with a hitching sob. "She was a g-good kid!"

When Duen holds a hand out for her, she takes it, gripping it like a lifeline while she weeps. It's only after her breathing evens, broken by tiny hiccups, that he speaks again. "Is there someone I can call for you, Maimai?" He's not shocked when she shakes her head. "It doesn't have to be a parent," he clarifies. "It can be anyone. A friend, a sibling, a grandparent, an aunt-" He lists the options one at a time, heart in his throat, because _surely_ someone loves this girl. And he aches to think that might not be true. 

". . . I have an auntie," she whispers after a beat, the words still a little wet. "I haven't seen her since the folks kicked me out though. But . . . She always did like me, so maybe . . ."

"If you have a name I can find out for you," Duen urges. 

Maimai nods, his hand still clutched tightly between both of hers. "Okay. Can you sit here with me for a little while though?"

"Of course."

~~~***~~~ 

Duen knows he shouldn't be doing it. It's altogether a bad idea for more reasons than he can count. There are studies, only a couple _hundred_ , on why touching someone else's baby too much while they’re this small can fuck up parental bonding, and Duen has absolutely read quite a few of them. Which is why he's not touching too much, he's only touching _a little_. 

Just a tiny, teeny bit. That can't hurt, right? 

He's thirty hours into the shift (or maybe it's forty, he lost track awhile ago), and things have mostly settled down. Every patient that had been hugging the line of being critical has been stabilized, and the last time he saw Nok the young doctor had been bouncing on his heels, puffed proud as he'd hurried between rooms. Really, Duen is calling this quick NICU visit his break, a reward for a job well done as he’d explained it to the graying, steel eyed nurse from before who'd given him the access pin after rolling her eyes at him. 

A handful of hours hasn't done much in the way of improvement for the babies. They're hooked up to enough equipment inside the incubators that it's hard to even see their tiny bodies beneath it all, wires and ventilator tubes carefully twisted this way and that so as not to totally smother them. And when Duen dares to stick a carefully gloved hand through the holes in the sides of one of the clear containers, he’s startled to find that they're almost the same size as his palm and outstretched fingers. God, his kids were _never_ this little. Hell, he doesn’t think even Ben was this small, and he'd been born three weeks early. 

They're in separate incubators, which makes his spine crawl even though he knows it's necessary, and he sits in between them, a hand in each one. He wonders, dully and distantly, if they're lonely, and then if that even matters when they're too young to remember. It bothers him that they don't smell like anything, that the only scent he picks up when he pulls his hands back is the sterile cling of hospital chemicals. Babies should have a scent, they should be wrapped in it; it grounds them, soothes them, to smell like their parents. But these ones . . .

There's one other infant in the NICU, quite a bit bigger and probably almost ready to go home. She has a name on the placard of her incubator, two little flowers with five petals doodled around it. It’s a stark contrast to the twins, labeled only as Baby Boy and Baby Girl, the white tags free of any other affections. 

When he staggers out of the room fifteen minutes later, Duen jolts as he comes face to face with Thara. His cousin is casually sipping a cup of sludgy cafeteria coffee. He looks as haggard as Duen feels, raccoon eyed and slumped where he's leaning on the wall opposite the door. There's a spot of blood on his lab coat sleeve Duen’s not sure he's aware of, only visible when he lifts his arm to take another dreg from the cup. "What are you doing?" He asks, just monotone enough that Duen knows he’s on the precipice of a lecture.

Forty, it turns out, is not quite old enough for him to hold back the immediate, long-instinctual denial of, "Nothing," when faced with the man who's practically his brother.

Thara lifts an eyebrow. "It didn't look like 'nothing.'" Curse the NICU and its big glass wall. "Duen . . ."

"I know," Duen says stiffly before he can continue. He’s not an idiot. 

"Do you though?" Thara argues. "I've looked at her file, I know she reminds you of-"

Duen snaps his teeth around the first notes of a warning growl he does not mean. "I _know_ , okay? I just wanted to check on them."

Thara frowns, lowering the cup to his side. "Duen," he says, and this time his name is uttered with an audible trace of concern. "You were touching them. You know you can't do that. You're an _alpha_. If you're not careful-"

"I KNOW!"

He doesn't mean to snap, he really doesn't. But he's tired, and heartsore, and _sad_ . And Thara is pushing all the wrong buttons at all the worst times. "I know all of that, okay?" Duen says thickly. "I'm not stupid. _I know_. I just . . . I thought they might be lonely," he whispers.

They don't smell like anything, they can't even be in the same incubator together, and the one person who seemed to care about them is _dead_.

"Can't I just sit with them a little while?" Duen asks. "Is that wrong? They don't have _anyone_ , P'Thara." No one except each other, and right now they don't even have that for comfort, either. There are tears in his eyes, Duen realizes when his vision blurs, and he lifts a hand to scrub them away before they can fall. "I didn’t touch them very much," he insists, because it dawns upon him that Thara probably thinks he's breaking some kind of code of ethics. "I know that I can't let them imprint on my scent. _I know_. But I couldn't . . ."

They're alone. They're _alone_. 

And knowing that is its own kind of agony, clawing at his insides until he feels like it will tear him apart from the inside out.

Thara sets a hand on his shoulder, a thumb rubbing across Duen’s clavicle for a moment before he speaks. "I'm just worried that you're going to get your heart broken, nong," he whispers.

Honestly, Duen thinks bleakly, he’s terrified of that too. "I'll be careful," he promises, every syllable of it thick on his tongue with the weight of silver.

~~~***~~~

Maimai's aunt shows up. She's a spitfire, maybe a decade or so older than Duen, and she gives him an earful and a half about her views on traditional primary and secondary gender roles (which is that they’re bullshit), how she’s going to turn her brother inside out asshole first (her words), and then proceeds to burst into tears the second she throws open the door to Maimai's room and sees her laying in the bed. It’s good, a perfect end to a mostly shit couple of days, and it takes just a little bit of the world back off of Duen’s shoulders as he watches them hug.

He tries to call Dia's mother again before he leaves, another message dropped on the machine when the line fails to pick up.

It's past midnight by then, the hall lights dimmed, the room lights dimmer, and he doesn't dare to do anything other than peek in through the window of the NICU, staring at the constant thrum of data on the machines, the tiny rise and fall of breaths taken into barely formed lungs.

Thara’s right. He’s going to break his own damn heart, and he’s going to end up doing it slowly, with moments just like this. 

Of the drive home, Duen doesn’t remember much. His mind is elsewhere, stuck in cycles between message boxes that will end up full before they're answered, the cosmic unjustness of a flipped car on a rainy night, and how loud a heart monitor sounds when the patients are too young to speak. 

Bohn is asleep when he stumbles home, curled in the center of their bed exactly where Duen had left him. If it weren't for the dishes in the sink, the flicker of the television in the living room, muted and forgotten about, it would almost be like no time has passed at all. Duen stands beside the bed for a long moment, weighing the impulse of just falling into it before he turns and heads to the bathroom instead for a long shower.

By the time he returns, hair dripping and a towel draped around his shoulders, Bohn is awake. He's blinking sleep from his eyes, and Bee’s blanket is pooled in his lap, but after a heartbeat he catches the light streaming in from the open bathroom door and glances up at him. "Hey," he whispers when Duen climbs up onto the mattress beside him. "You're getting water everywhere. Come here."

Bohn is warm against his back as he towels Duen’s hair into a closer semblance of being dry. He presses soft kisses over Duen’s neck now and then, nuzzles along the damp skin, every inhale he takes deep and even. "Missed you," he purrs when the towel is set aside. 

Duen swallows thickly. "Yeah. I really missed you, too."

"Ooohhh," Bohn smiles, the curve of it resting against Duen’s bare shoulder. "You _really_ missed me. To what do I owe the honor?"

 _Someone died tonight. She was just like you were, once._ "Nothing," he says, but it wavers, and Bohn’s arms are around his middle in an instant.

" _Baby_ , what happened?"

He can't say it, as if speaking it aloud makes it real, tills the earth six feet with finality. But he shakes through a wet inhale anyways, hitches over the first breaths of a sob he's been holding onto for far too long. Bohn lets him cry, holds him and stays quiet, his only response formed in the steady purr he keeps up, the rhythm of it lulling through Duen’s back where they’re pressed together. Sometimes days are just hard, the news all bad, the grief too palpable not to be shared. And for Bohn, this probably just seems like another one of those.

It's enough for now though. Duen doesn't want the depth of the sympathy he'd find if he told Bohn the truth, at least not yet. This is enough. He turns in his husband's grip, drags him in closer with a choked noise he wishes he was able to hold back, and buries his face in the crook of his neck. 

In the end, though, he’s not sure if having that comfort, that place to go home to that's so full of love, makes the hours behind him better or worse.

~~~***~~~

Duen moves his shifts from their homey little clinic to the hospital, staring down the disappointed frown Thara gives him when he does so. He's already said his piece though, and he doesn't repeat it when Duen leaves. Somehow that almost hurts more.

Maimai is still there when Duen checks in on her that afternoon, but her aunt is nowhere to be seen. "She dipped to go get me some books," she explains when Duen asks. "Says I'm behind on my education, which is probably true. I haven't been to school in . . ." She ticks off her fingers, "I guess about a year? Or pretty close to it."

"That's a lot of catching up to do," Duen remarks.

She nods. "Yeah. But auntie says she'll help me. She's smart, owns a little tech depot in town. Most stuff is digital these days, but she says it's always gonna be easier to concentrate when you have 'the classics' in your hands." The appropriate air quotes are added, and Duen smiles. She seems to be doing better, at the very least.

"You'll be getting ready for university then?" Another nod. She reminds him of Ram, just a little, the obvious answers given in as few words as possible. "What are you thinking of studying?"

Her hands fiddle with the stiff blanket over her legs. "Dunno. I don't think I'm good at anything, and I don't know what they look at for uni acceptance. If I got a record . . ." She draws off, lower lip tugged up between her teeth. "Hey, um . . . I know I said no, before . . . But can I see the babies?"

"Sure. I was headed that way anyways. You okay with me lifting you to help you wash your hands and get set up in a wheelchair?" 

"Don't see why not," she shrugs. "You're a doctor guy, that's your job."

They're halfway to the NICU when Maimai starts talking. Her voice stays low, tenored only for him to hear, and it cuts off whenever their path gets too crowded. But she talks, and Duen knows how important it is that someone listens. "Dia and I played volleyball. Before. She liked the sport but she really wasn't very good, ended up being our water girl most of the time. Her mae had her in a lot of extracurricular shit like that. Debate, track, some kinda nerd chemistry thing I can't remember the name of. I only knew her through volleyball though. I don’t know what happened to her after I . . ." She grows quiet again, mouth snapping shut, but this time Duen can fill in the blanks well enough. A young alpha girl on the outs with a conservative family post-presentation, making one teenage mistake too many. "We ran into each other at the shelter, and she was already four months stuffed," Maimai whispers. "And she was . . . She was always such a little one, the epitome of omega, you know? Her mae used to throw all these gaudy parties for her socialite friends. I'm sure it was some other rich kid. That type," she growls, "they like to play _games_ , big posturing alphas who think they're hot shit because they've got flat chests and a dick that knots. Er," she stammers, "not that all male alphas are like that! I mean-"

"It's alright," Duen assures. "I know people like that too." Although, he thinks, he knows significantly less of them than he used to. Both his own father and Bohn's are now just jars of ash, left to be forgotten on the mantles of spouses they saw more as objects than human beings. 

Maimai snorts. "Yeah. I figured. You seem decent, which means you either didn't have an alpha parent or you had a _terrible_ one. My auntie is like that. Anyways, Dia never told me who . . . But that's not gonna matter, right? If the dude doesn't know, they're still orphans."

Duen isn’t sure how to answer that other than with a quiet affirmative. She's not wrong. 

"What if her mae . . ." She growls again. "If my knee wasn't fucked, I'd do it myself, you know. If her mae tries anything."

"Do what?" Duen asks, knowing he'll regret it.

"Kill her," Maimai mutters. "She threw Dia out when she got pregnant. She doesn't get to take the kids. That's not _right_. I wasn't . . . I wasn't _her_ alpha, but . . ."

Duen stops pushing the wheelchair. They're just a few steps from the NICU, alone in the hall, and Maimai shrinks into herself a little when he strides around to crouch in front of her. She studiously doesn't meet his eyes. "Maimai," he says gently, "I know you mean well, you're a good girl." She sniffles, hands clenching in the lap of her hospital gown. "But what I want you to focus on right now is _you_. You're smart," he ignores it when she shakes her head, "and _so_ brave. A good girl," he repeats fiercely, "a good _alpha_. Which is why I want you to leave the babies to me, alright?"

She meets his gaze hesitantly, "To you?"

Duen nods, holding his hands out for her to take and squeezing her palms when she does. "I won't let anything bad happen to Dia's babies, okay? I promise." He squeezes her hands again. "Besides," he admits darkly, "her mae hasn't even bothered to call us back."

Maimai's upper lip pulls back from her teeth, "Color me surprised."

The NICU is draped in its usual mull of sound, beeps and whirs that echo in the tile and glass space. The twins are now the room's only occupants, Duen notes, the other child probably having been big enough to be transferred either to the nursery or straight home. Maimai is a little nonplussed about having to put on gloves but sobers significantly when he explains that the babies don't have good immune systems yet. "Thought you just didn't want me to accidentally get my alpha-ness all over them," she mutters. 

Both infants are asleep when he wheels her up between their incubators, and likely to stay that way, he explains when she nervously asks if they'll wake up. "They still have some growing to do," he says quietly as she reaches a tentative gloved hand into one of the incubators. "And that takes a lot of energy, so they'll do quite a bit of sleeping for the next month or so until they catch up."

Maimai leans as far forward in her wheelchair as her knee will allow, squinting at the baby she's tentatively flattening two fingers over the stomach of. "I kinda expected them to look more like Dia," she admits after a minute. "But they just look like big prunes with old man faces."

Duen chokes on a burst of laughter. "That's what most babies look like, actually. They only get cute once they're a few months old."

"Hmmmm . . ." She turns to the other twin instead, letting Duen twist her chair so she can study that one, too. "Think they're too young for volleyball?" Maimai grins when he laughs again. "You're right. Hard to do a good serve when you're smaller than the ball itself. Plus, they'll probably suck just like Dia did. They can be bench buddies, I guess." Her eyes are moist at the edges again, and she twists her head to the side when she catches him looking, hurriedly wiping a hand over them. "Y-you better keep your promise, okay?"

"I will," Duen murmurs over the steady thrum of the NICU machines. "I swear."

~~~***~~~

Duen leaves a third message for Dia's mother, a cold knot in his chest as he says, "We've been trying to contact you for four days now. If you could get back to us as soon as possible we need to speak with you urgently." Somehow, though, he knows this call won't be returned either.

He's tempted to just tell her to come down and identify a body, but in the end it's not worth losing his license over. And, perhaps more importantly, it would break the promise he's made to Maimai. 

His house is lively when he parks his motorcycle in the driveway that evening. Most of the lights are on, casting bright squares of gold across the twilight shadowed yard and cul-de-sac they sit alone at the end of. He can see Day perched at the kitchen table doing his homework through the glass, the voices of Bohn and Del reverberating from beyond. Altogether it's relatively quiet, unquestionably calm, and he relishes in it all for a long moment, leaning over the handlebars for awhile just to enjoy the view. 

There's a saying about not judging a book by its cover, and so too does Duen know not to make assumptions on the contents of his home by the glimpses he can catch from the outside. His previously, quietly melancholy mood dissipates the instant he steps inside, nostrils flaring as he immediately catches the smell of smoke. 

"Dad burned noodles," Day says from the table without even looking up from his homework when Duen careens into the kitchen at top speed. "It's fine now though. Technically, there weren't any flames."

 _Technically_ , Duen thinks darkly. "Please tell me he was at least frying them."

"Boiling," Day responds.

It's impressive, really, all the ways Bohn manages to defy the natural laws of the universe using only common household kitchen equipment. At this point it's a talent moreso than a fatal flaw. "Did he spontaneously combust? Or is he hiding."

Day jerks his head towards the large sliding glass doors overlooking the backyard. "He's sitting on the back porch with Del because the smokey smell was upsetting her."

Duen finds both of them exactly where indicated. Bohn is stretched out across the wicker sofa on the patio, Del clambering over the swingset in the grass beyond, illuminated by the light shining above the door. The first of the summer cicadas are still chirping in the waning streaks of dusk, and Bohn doesn't glance his way until Duen shuts the door behind himself. "Another rough one?" He asks when Duen crosses the space between them to climb over top of him, settle across him into his ready embrace.

"Not really," he says, and this time he means it. Mostly. "Just long. Why were you cooking? Are you trying to burn the house down?"

He can feel Bohn sulking without looking at him, a truly tremendous pout if the sigh he releases is anything to go by. "I was trying to make us a romantic dinner. Frong is coming by in about an hour to pick the kids up, and you've been so busy I knew you weren't going to make it this year, so . . ."

Duen's pretty sure his fucking heart stops beating, and with the way he tenses up in panic, he knows Bohn understands immediately. "Shit."

Bohn is silent for a long, long moment. "You forgot."

"Bohn-"

"S'okay," Bohn whispers, the tone of it giving away that it's really _not_. "I already knew you were busy, and you're bad with dates sometimes. I should have . . ."

Duen sits up, knees framing Bohn’s hips, hands on his cheeks. "Phi, _no_. It's my fault for not remembering, there's no reason for you to remind me of our anniversary. I'm so sorry I'm an idiot."

To his utter relief, Bohn smiles, the ends of it curling against the sides of Duen’s palms. "Still my cutest little dumb."

"Is it too late for me to cook something for you?"

Bohn shakes his head. "No. The kids are going to be gone all night." His tone pitches slightly lower along the end of the sentence, meaningfully so, and heat coils swiftly in Duen’s veins in the wake of it. "And I was trying to make kuai-tiao ruea by the way, if you want to try and salvage any of that." 

"On a scale of one to ten, how black is all of it?"

". . . Seven . . ."

Frong gives him a royal side-eye when he collects Del and Day, a dead giveaway that Thara's said something to him, but Duen doesn't care. He has Bohn all to himself tonight, and he’s not going to waste any of it dwelling on his cousin's disapproval. His choices are his own to make, and as far as he's concerned they're already as good as set in stone. He tries not to think about those either, though, his focus narrowing until all that's left of the world is a house well lived in and a life well loved.

Bohn is a menace in the kitchen when he attempts to actually cook, but he's an adept assistant. He makes quick work of the little ingredients, the things that need cutting and dicing, mixing, kneading, anything he can't actively set on fire while Duen does the bulk of the work that involves using heat of any kind. Some of Bohn’s kuai-tiao ruea is still edible, and Duen makes a show of scraping the worst bits of charcoal off of it while Bohn whines. 

By the time dinner is finished a warm and light wind has blown in, tempoing against the windows. It's already more than enough of a background lull to a long day, but Bohn hums to the uneven beat of it, leaning over their aging stereo to twist it on. "Push the coffee table aside, babe," he calls over his shoulder. 

"I know you know I haven't learned to dance in the last thirteen years," Duen warns. 

Bohn makes a nonchalant, uncaring little noise, the stereo fiddled with for a moment longer before he seems satisfied and straightens up again. "That's fine. I'll lead."

Time, Duen hopes, is cyclical. In the same way the sun rises and falls every day as the earth spins around the solar system, he likes to think that when it eventually sets for him, he'll still see another sunrise someday. At forty-two there are shallow crow's feet in the corners of Bohn’s eyes, laugh lines along the curves of his smile, and somehow Duen loves him more now than he did yesterday, the day before, the year prior. It bleeds into everything he does, every beat of his heart and breath he takes into his lungs. Bohn spins him under his arm and he’s twenty-seven on his wedding night, pulls him close and he’s nineteen and lost in the woods, waiting to be found, but when he kisses him he's forty, dizzy with the swirl of galaxies that linger between them, waiting to make them into stardust until they can start all over anew. 

"I'm going to bring you flowers tomorrow," Duen whispers, stealing a second kiss, a third, the music a distant tune their bodies keep swaying to. 

Bohn chuckles against his mouth. When he pulls back his eyes are half lidded, banked embers in the evening light, soft and warm and so terribly fond that Duen still blushes under the heat of them even after all this time. "Anyone ever tell you that you're a one trick pony?"

Huffing, Duen reminds, "Technically you started it by _forcing_ me to bring you flowers."

"Hm," Bohn muses. "That doesn't sound right. Me? Bully Duen Rattananumchock to do anything he didn't already want to do? Bullshit." He flutters his eyelashes, wiggling in Duen’s grip to wind his arms around his shoulders. "Admit it, you thought I was cute. You were going to bring me flowers anyways. How could you resist?"

Duen rolls his eyes. "You know what, I'll let you keep thinking that."

"Rude?" He doesn't seem that put out by it though, the first rumblings of a purr Duen knows too well welling up in him. "Hey," Bohn murmurs near his ear as the song peters out on its last refrain and shifts into the next one on the playlist. "Where's my anniversary gift?"

Guilt stills Duen’s tongue in his mouth, eyes wide for a heartbeat before Bohn nuzzles at his throat with a telling, teasing snicker. "It's alright. I got you something for both of us." He leans away a little, just enough to nod towards the yard beyond the sliding doors. "There's a blanket all spread out for a starry picnic."

Duen lets himself be lead outside, his suspicions confirmed when he's shown an empty blanket on the grass, weighed down against the seasonal breeze with a couple of rocks. "Oh no," Bohn exclaims, utterly deadpan. "We just ate! Silly me, I forgot to say this picnic was for _dessert_." And then he promptly flops over backwards onto the expanse of red checkered fleece, a shit-eating grin on his face.

"How long were you thinking of that line?" Duen asks wryly as he drops to his knees on the blanket at his feet.

Bohn hums, "Uh, at least like ten minutes. Please heap praises upon me for my charm and wit now, thank you."

Duen braces his hands on either side of his husband's head, one eyebrow raised. "How about I praise you for your _sass_."

"Either is fine, it's all compliments anyways," Bohn grins. He reaches for him, threading fingers into the hair at the nape of Duen's neck and pulling until their lips collide. "No rush," he reminds when Duen frames his face with his hands, steals the air from his lungs. "We've got all night for you to worship me."

He says it in jest, but Duen means to do exactly that. His hands are already skimming under the waistline of Bohn’s pants, fingers fitting around the jut of his hips and kneading into his ass. "Anything in particular you want me to start with, phi?" He purrs, gratified when Bohn tucks his face into the space between his neck and shoulder and answers the sound with one of equal tenor. "I can start slow," he murmurs, teeth dragging over the hinge of Bohn’s jaw till he shivers. "Mark you first, get you all loose and pliant for me, covered in bruises and bites so you'll see them in the morning and think of me."

"I'm always thinking of you," Bohn whispers, already husky. 

Duen hooks his thumb into the hem of Bohn’s pants and starts working them down. "I'll mark you," he promises as if he was never interrupted, "but that's just step one of what you want, isn't it, phi? The best desserts should be properly decorated before they're _eaten_." Bohn’s hands clench in his shirt, over the space between Duen’s shoulder blades. "And then, once I've made you come from that, when you're already wet for me and undone, I'll fuck you until you moan so loud the neighbors hear."

" _Fuck_ ," Bohn breathes, practically vibrating in his skin with unshackled need as Duen pushes his shirt off over his head. "Who the hell taught you to talk dirty like that?"

"I wonder," Duen smirks. 

"A true mystery," Bohn agrees, the words breaking off into a hitched little gasp when Duen sinks his teeth into his collarbone. 

If there's one thing Duen knows with certainty he'll never grow tired of, it's this. For all his public posturing, Bohn turns to putty beneath his hands whenever he's properly marked. He's easily overwhelmed, but only by the willingness with which he gives in to the effects. His eyes are already glassy when Duen glances up at him midway through a third nip to skin, a second petaled bruise left beneath his lips. His fingers skim down over Bohn’s ribs while he works, dancing along them like they're keys tuned for him to play, every quavering whimper and groan he earns a fresh symphony. There are well loved places on this body, ones Duen has made favored homes upon so repeatedly that Bohn shivers with pleasure at even the most casual brushes against him. He kisses adorations over each of them, the hollow of Bohn’s throat, the inside of his thighs, the right dip of between waist and hip. For the scar low on his abdomen, Duen lingers, the line of it traced out in long and careful minutes to remind his partner of his affection. Every centimeter of him is treasured, cherished, even the parts Bohn himself hates. 

His hands are in Duen’s hair at the first press of a kiss to his core, a staggered inhale heaving through his chest. For some reason he's always a little startled by it, even now, his gaze fixated as if awed when Duen peeks up at him. Maybe it's the vulnerability of it, Duen thinks as he soothes his thumbs over the inside of Bohn’s thighs while he brings his knees up to rest on his shoulders. Being bared in the most intimate way imaginable when your partner has a tendency to bite probably would get anyone to tense up. "I'll be gentle," he cajoles, earning a scowl from Bohn, a slightly harder grip in his hair. Then again, maybe it's just because Bohn, no matter how much time passes, seems to hold on to a trace of genuine disbelief that he’s wanted. It would make sense, then, for him to instinctively react that way when Duen shows off that he is in the one manner that wouldn't naturally hold any gratification for himself. "Phi," he soothes when Bohn still trembles under his touch, the muscles of his thighs remaining as stiff as the hand in his hair. "Let go. Let me take care of you." Bohn untangles his fingers slowly, sinking back into the contours of the blanket over the grass at much the same speed. The nervous energy uncoils from him quickly though, catching on an anticipatory breath. And really, Duen decides, he can only blame himself. Bohn’s bound to be a little wound up considering his fucking husband forgot their anniversary. 

Duen places a kiss to the inside of Bohn’s thigh and works his way inwards, every press of lips punctuated with a teasing dig of teeth. Normally, he likes to tease Bohn when he has him like this, bring him to the precipice over long minutes and then hold him there. But tonight he's just a little desperate himself, aching for something good in the wake of days he'd rather leave behind for a little while. 

Bohn keens as soon as he latches his lips around where he's most sensitive, startled hands scrambling to tangle in his hair again. "Oh _god_ ," Bohn pants, Duen’s grip on his thighs the only thing keeping them parted on either side of his head. " _Fuck_. What's gotten into you?" Duen responds with a pleased hum, smirking a bit as the vibration of the sound elicits a gasp from Bohn’s lungs. "I take back the dessert joke," Bohn groans. "I don't know why I thought it was funny, you always just use this as an excuse to _ruin_ me." Duen lets that comment hang in the air for awhile, occupied with the task at hand as he draws his tongue across the heat of his husband until Bohn shivers bodily. Only then does he glance up at him, one eyebrow arched. Bohn makes an odd little noise when he does so, cheeks pinkening as a full body shiver ripples through him. “Your mouth is wet,” he says, hitched and hushed.

Duen grins, “ _You’re_ wet,” he corrects, licking his lips. 

This time the sound Bohn lets out is one of the neediest whimpers Duen has ever had the divine pleasure of hearing. “I- _yeah_ ,” Bohn whispers. His tone has pitched into that certain sort of warmth, honey-tinged with desire, and Duen adores it. The hand in his hair strokes his bangs back from his forehead, slow, careful, almost like Duen’s being praised in touch alone, rewarded with these small affections. “Don’t get too excited,” Bohn warns huskily. “Neither of us have the stamina we used to.”

That’s a fucking lie, Duen thinks mildly. Bohn definitely does, he just doesn’t like to lord it over him. Still, he understands the instructions, the mental note not to get himself off while he does this tucked away into the back of his mind. It’s such a casual direction, meaning hidden away in the embers he can see glowing low in the way Bohn looks at him. Don’t get too excited, he reminds himself, because your husband wants you to fuck him _very much_. 

Bohn mewls the next time Duen presses his tongue to him, the whole taut line of him bowing off the blanket for a moment. His head is thrown back when Duen delves into him and his thighs tremble in his grip. “ _Baby_ ,” he pants, every flick of Duen’s tongue over him, inside him, every lingering press of lips or teasing breath making him _quiver_. The fingers in Duen’s hair flex without rhythm, tighten almost until it hurts only to slacken the next time Duen draws the flat of his tongue over his center. It’s not insistent so much as blatantly overstimulated, made all the better when Bohn tries to snap his mouth shut around a truly helpless moan and fails. Duen wants to make him come just like this, wants to feel it and taste it against his mouth, but he also wants permission. Bohn is a mess already, hazy eyed with ecstasy when he lifts his head to catch Duen’s inquisitive glance. What he gets is nearly a growl, the grip on his hair tugging. “Why did you stop?”

Permission achieved. Duen’s never been with anyone else, so he’s not sure if it’s an omega thing, or a _Bohn_ thing, the way his partner practically falls apart at the seams when he comes. The little tells of it are everywhere, built up to in measures and minutes. The best part, Duen decides, is the steady way in which his breathing will start to stagger, catch, until the whimpers he’s choking on descend into strung out sounds and swears. Duen likes the way he’ll tense up for a second first, stiffen right on that cliffside of total rapture, often with Duen’s name on his lips like prayer. But it’s the way he flutters around Duen’s tongue that really gets him, that overwhelmed wave after wave of his insides clenching, utterly instinctual in the throes of pleasure. 

He’s practically kneading his hand in Duen’s hair as he twitches and shudders through aftershocks that toe the line of being just a little too intense, gasping in the wake of one and squeezing his thighs together enough that Duen’s forced to hold them apart. “One of these days,” Bohn pants when Duen shifts to lay across him, take his face between his hands and kiss the very taste of him into his mouth, “you’re going to make me come so hard like that I’ll actually fucking faint.”

Duen just hums to that, certainly not opposed. Bohn is purring again in his arms, so deliciously pliant that Duen can’t help but be compelled to pepper his face and neck with kisses, smirking when he laughs. “Gorgeous, phi,” he praises, enamored when Bohn’s only response is to purr louder. “Beautiful.”

Bohn snickers, squirming to try and avoid the next plethora of kisses Duen tries to gift across the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, yeah. Now say that while looking at the wrinkles I’m starting to get. Or that streak of grey right behind my left ear.”

Obligingly, Duen pauses. He lets their eyes meet for a moment before he leans in again, makes sure Bohn knows he means it, before he places a reverent kiss to the crow’s feet first on the left, then the right sides of his face. “Love you, phi,” he murmurs, purring to drown out the softly startled sound that slips out from between Bohn’s lips. He finds the spot of mentioned grey and noses over that, too. “And I love you more now than ever,” he assures.

He’s not oblivious to the way Bohn whimpers, just a bit, in the wake of his words, but he doesn’t comment on it. It breaks his fucking heart, sometimes, how Bohn’s uncertainty never quite seems to leave him. The fact that it’s all clearly too ingrained to do so makes him ache, sympathy buried in his bones for every time Bohn has found himself doubting, bogged down in his own flawed view of self worth. He can’t fix that, it was already scarred into him long before they even met, but Duen is determined to spend every second of the rest of his life making sure Bohn knows that, at the very least, it’s not true.

“Love you,” he repeats, ever fond. “I adore you, phi.” He strokes his thumbs over the shallow lines curling in the corners of Bohn’s smile. “Always.”

“Don’t trace my laugh lines,” Bohn whines, flushed and so visibly happy that Duen wants to burn the image into his mind for eternity. “You’ll make them worse!”

“Good.”

They are, after all, a sign of a life well lived.

~~~***~~~

Morning dawns slowly, the same way it’s tended to do all week thus far, as if the sun itself is giving in to the temptation to linger before facing the world. Duen lingers too, face buried in the crook of Bohn’s neck long after his alarm goes off. 

“You still picking up hospital shifts?” Bohn mumbles sleepily after awhile, answered only with a stilted nod. 

Duen wants to stay here, wrapped up in the cool and quiet, admiring his own handiwork decorating his husband’s skin. Bohn’s back is absolutely littered with hickies, faint imprints of teeth, and one much harsher bite in that favored place on the back of his neck. He’s loose in Duen’s arms, clearly still blissfully fucked out enough not to care that neither of them have made any attempts to leave the bed yet, and Duen is highly tempted to give him an encore.

Luckily, Bohn seems to have a similar idea, because before the thought has even finished forming in his mind, Duen finds himself pinned down on the mattress. Bohn rolls over on top of him, the sheets spilling from his shoulders to pool around the back of his calves and ankles as he straddles him. “Got a little time for me?” he asks, hand already stroking quickly over Duen’s half hard length. 

Casting a glance at his phone, Duen replies with a clipped, “Yes,” that cuts off into a groan as Bohn promptly gets his knees under him and sinks down in one swift movement. 

It’s the sort of filthy, time-constrained love making they’ve gotten adept at over the years, the kind that leaves Duen the tiniest bit dizzy, has Bohn panting around the poorly stifled notes of too-fast climaxes. He gets a good grip on Bohn’s hips, just to hold him, thumbs absently smoothing over the edges of that old scar while Bohn rides him with hands pressed flat to the planes of Duen’s chest. It’s easy to fixate on the sensations, the rise and fall, the way Bohn bears down on him as he tips himself over the precipice, swivels his hips again and again while he whimpers through it, chasing the feeling to completion. They really, really don’t have time for it, but Duen lets him slip down onto his knot anyways, biting his lip as he flips them, jerks and presses in that instinctual attempt to get just a little deeper, keep Bohn filled and tied as he spills inside him, teeth digging into a collarbone that’s woefully bare of marks after the previous night. 

“You’re going to be late,” Bohn whispers against his ear in the cool down, humming on his pleasure despite the scolding tone. 

Duen holds his tongue on that remark, the admission that he wants to be dying before it can be spoken. Dread has found a home behind his ribs now, mixed in with the growing grief, the unfiltered dismay, those first agonizing pangs of uncertainty. For now though, he just wants another moment for himself, away from it all, where he can curl against the warmth of Bohn’s body and forget the mounting desperation that’s beginning to loom ahead.

~~~***~~~

Duen finishes his rounds with quick efficiency, only earning one eye roll from the greying nurse, who he finally figures out goes by _Pancake_ , when he skids down the hall past her and almost runs right into the wall at the end of it before he careens around the corner. Maimai spent most of the day studying diligently, and her aunt had shooed him away when he’d attempted to make small talk after checking up on her, calling him a distraction. So by the time he finally has his awaited for moment to swing by the NICU he’s already exhausted, worn thin from a long shift without much in the way of good moments and eager to finish the day with something he's been looking forward to.

The twins are actually, for the first time, awake when he peeks in on them. Not by much of course, because as he’d explained to Maimai they’re still catching up on their growth; and hooked to the machines the way they are it’s not like there’s much to even keep them interested enough to stay awake anyways. But there they both are, blinking up at him through the clear tops of the incubators with bleary little eyes. 

Duen thinks they look a bit bigger already, no longer quite as dwarfed by all the tubes and wires as they’d been at the start of their first week in the world. Someone has stuck a pair of tiny mitts on the hands of the girl, a scratch on her cheek giving away that she’s been active enough to have flailed and made the mark on herself. Duen coos at them before he draws careful fingers over the top of her head. They both have just the barest dusting of hair, peach fuzzed and soft, and he kicks a chair into place between them so he can give them equal attention. 

“You’re getting so big!” he praises, a slight overexaggeration. The boy seems to appreciate it though, wiggling when Duen strokes a thumb across a pudgy cheek. 

“Ooooh! He likes you, huh!”

Duen nearly screams. He hadn’t heard the door open at all, so when he whips around, swiftly pulling his hands out of the incubators like a fox caught in the chicken coop, he’s entirely startled to see a nurse standing almost right next to him. She just beams at him though, clearly unbothered by his presence. “I was about to change them,” she explains, gesturing to the diapers that still look comically large on their undersized bodies. “If you want to stick around I could use the extra set of hands. Even though they’re basically separated the girl tends to fuss when I take her out without her brother.”

He should say no. _He needs to say no_. If he does anything else, Thara will drag him by his ear back to the clinic the second he hears about it. But what comes out of his mouth is a tentative, “Can I?”

She nods, already popping the top open to the incubator on his right. “You got kids, doctor?” she asks. Duen nods. “Cool, then I don’t have to give you instructions. Here.”

Thara is going to _kill him_ , Duen thinks, but it’s already a distant resignation, his focus trapped in an instant as she unhooks the boy from everything with deft fingers and swaddles him up to be deposited in Duen’s waiting arms. 

He’s _so tiny_. Which Duen knew, of course, he’s been visiting both of them for almost a week now, was there when they came into the world. But actually holding one of them only highlights that fact. The nurse has the girl, whirls her around the room to the changing table while Duen follows at a slower pace. “Is it okay for them to be off the ventilators?” he asks without looking up.

“It’s just for a few minutes,” she assures him while she works. “We’re both trained to spot signs of respiratory distress, and they're more of a precaution against SIDS anyways. They’re in good hands.”

Duen, heart in his throat, settles a hand over the top of the bundle tucked into the crook of his elbow, thumb resuming its earlier progress over the baby’s cheek. He gets a burble for it, a sleepy blink.

It’s too late, he knows. And Thara had known it too. 

Wordlessly, he lets the nurse trade him, the girl settled against his elbow instead for awhile. She’s a little more conscious than her sibling, and not as tightly wrapped, one of her mitted hands reaching for him. He lets her, watches her make a valiant attempt to grasp onto his index finger when he touches her.

It’s too late. He’s already too far gone. And he’s going to break his own damn heart, just like Thara said he would.

He swallows past it, shaking his head slightly so that neither infants nor oblivious nurse will see the tears that threaten to overwhelm him for a moment. “Look at you,” he whispers. “Feisty!”

“Someone should be,” the nurse laughs. “Her brother is such a drowsy little thing. But,” she holds up one of his feet, the one where his hospital band is wrapped around the ankle, “see this?” She points to something written on it among the rest of the information, “He was unresponsive when they pulled him out.”

“Is he okay?” Duen asks, as of he hadn’t been there.

“Oh yeah. But being brought back from the brink has to be exhausting, I’d think!” She laughs. “He’s hit all the right development marks though, tracks with his eyes and has those cute little vocalizations like he did for you a second ago. I just think he’s rightfully tired. Want to hold both of them?”

He _really_ should say no. “If that’s okay . . .”

Duen promptly finds himself with his arms full of not one, but two babies. The nurse barely pays him any mind, set in her task of cleaning up, resetting the machines and changing the bedding of the incubators while Duen slowly sits back down in his chair. They barely weigh anything, even swaddled up as they are to keep warm, and Duen lays them in his lap with room to spare, hands carefully keeping them there. He stares, mind racing, and they stare back. The boy is mostly asleep again, but he’s worked a hand out to fist in the blanket, and Duen runs a thumb over his fragile knuckles until he drifts off completely. 

“He does like you,” the nurse coos when she lifts him up to return to the incubator first. “He usually just cries for me when I try to soothe him. He’s got quite a set of lungs.”

The girl looks like she’s about to do just that, face scrunching up the moment her brother is no longer beside her, and Duen scoops her off his knees to tuck her more securely against him in a hasty attempt to ward it off. She snuffles unhappily at his shoulder, giving him one weak little mitted smack. “Hey,” Duen scolds softly, smiling. 

“You’re lucky she’s got her mittens on,” the nurse chuckles when she takes her back. “She got the evening shift attendant in the nose last night, two sharp fingers right up the nostril.”

Duen hums his amusement. “Do they get a lot of attention in here?”

She shrugs. “Just the necessary stuff. They’re asleep most of the time, so it’s alright. Plus, we’re all hoping someone’s gonna show up for them soon, and then they’ll get lots and lots,” the nurse gives the cheek of the girl a teasing pinch as she says it, earning another flailing swat for it. 

“What happens if no one does?”

“Foster system, probably,” she shrugs. “Maybe adoption, but not likely. There’s laws about separation of twins.” Duen watches, something almost feral clawing through him as she points to the band on the ankle of the boy again. “And this one . . . Male omegas are statistically the least likely for adoption.”

“He’s an _infant_ , it’ll be years before he presents,” Duen says lowly, almost a growl.

Unperturbed, she just lifts an eyebrow. “Look, doc. I’m just quoting the stats for you. He’s got a seven percent chance of being beta, and no matter how much time passes, the world is still full of assholes. I don’t make the numbers, I’m just repeating them. That’s why we’re hoping a relative comes to collect. It’s their best shot.”

It isn’t, Duen thinks fiercely. He made Maimai a promise, and he intends to keep it. 

~~~***~~~

Duen sits in his home office for a long time after the kids go to bed, scrolling through his emails, answering, waiting for a response, and then answering again. It's nearing midnight when Bohn wanders in to drape himself over the back of his chair and shoulders, nuzzling tiredly into the curve of his neck. "Are you going to stay here till your next shift?" He goads, but there’s something hesitant in his tone, as if he actually thinks Duen might. Turning the computer off, Duen spins the chair around until Bohn tumbles gracelessly into his lap, arms coming up to wind around Duen’s neck as soon as he’s able. "Come to bed," he pleads. 

He's instantly clingy when Duen stands, refusing to let go, and only seeming pleased when Duen obligingly nudges at his thighs, lets him jump to wrap his legs around him. It makes Duen mull over the date for a second, count the months since their last cycle in confusion and come up short. He’s tempted to check Bohn’s medication, but he does that almost every morning, and a single missed dose usually doesn't show up like this. Something's up, he just can't put his finger on it.

And the most blatant indicator of that, he realizes as he carries Bohn back to their room, is the fact that his husband is simply quiet against him, silence in place of the purr Duen expects to hear. 

It hits him like a freight train what he's done as he kneels to settle them on the bed, his eyes noting the empty vase with a thin sheen of shallow water at the bottom on the nightstand with confusion.

Oh god. He told Bohn he was going to bring him flowers to make up for his fuckup of the prior evening, and _forgot._

He's swift to hold Bohn closer, quickly burying his face in the crook of his neck and nosing over the scent glands there in muted apology. "I'm so sorry," he whispers fiercely, "I'm such an _idiot_."

Bohn, to his dismay, doesn't say anything. He's just quiet, still when Duen nuzzles at him, tightens his arms around him. "It's fine," he whispers eventually. "I know you're busy."

"I should never be too busy for you," Duen murmurs over the shell of his ear. " _Never_. I'm so sorry."

This time, Duen thinks, Bohn is almost _too_ pliant. There's a wariness to the way he looks at him when Duen rolls them onto the bed properly. He's loose in Duen’s hold, but it's almost meek, and though his arms are around Duen’s shoulders still he's eased back from his clinging now that Duen’s figured out what's wrong. "You're allowed to be busy," Bohn says quietly after awhile. "It's alright."

It's really not, and Duen can see that it isn't by the way Bohn won't quite meet his eyes. _Fuck_ , he looks like he's been crying, Duen realizes, choking on thick and immediate anguish. "Work has been . . . Hectic," Duen settles on. He can't tell him, not yet. It's fine if he breaks his own heart in this, but he can’t do that to Bohn, too. "I really am sorry, phi. I didn't mean to forget, I-"

For some reason that makes Bohn go rigid against him. "I'm going to go sleep on the sofa," he mutters.

Duen clamps his arms around him before he can so much as move. "Don't-"

"You know it's _worse_ that you didn't mean to forget, right?" Bohn says stiffly when he staunchly refused to release him. "I think I'd almost be less upset if you'd somehow done it on purpose, since then at least I could be sure you were thinking of me-"

" _Bohn_ ," Duen pleads, " ** _no_**. It's not- Of _course_ I think of you. For fuck’s sake, we've been together for over twenty years! I think of you all the time!" The glare Bohn levels him with is more hurt than pissed, moist at the edges. He _was_ crying, Duen knows, and his whole body aches as that sinks in once more. "Phi," he tries again, cradling Bohn’s face in his hands. "I swear. I'm just . . . Some stuff is going on at the hospital right now that's really, really important. And as soon as I can talk about it with you, I will."

"We're supposed to _talk_ about stuff," Bohns reminds. "That was _your_ idea."

"And we will," Duen promises. "Soon." Bohn’s gaze is still doubtful, so heart wrenchingly upset at its roots that Duen can’t help the dismayed noise that rises in him. "Phi," Duen whispers. This isn't just about him forgetting, he decides, even though that's definitely the cause of it boiling over. His stupid lapse in memory was simply the tipping point, the overflow to a much deeper wound he's already familiar with. "Let's talk now," he murmurs, pulling Bohn close again, "just a little."

It makes something twist in painfully his chest, the way Bohn practically melts against him, tangles their limbs together with a muffled whimper he's not meant to hear. "Del started first grade last month," he chokes out after a beat, "and I'm just . . . It's _so much harder than I thought it would be_."

Duen gathers him as close as he can, tearing up as Bohn all but burrows into the hold, shuddering on a sound that rings too close to a sob. God, he'd almost forgotten that, too, even though he's been checking Bohn’s medication diligently for awhile now for exactly that reason. But he let it turn into just another part of his routine, almost absentminded in its repetition until it settled into the back of his mind. Bee went off to college, and Bohn’s last baby started full days of school in the same month, the same year. Of course he's struggling. And Duen should be _here_ , taking shorter clinic shifts, home with him as often as he can spare while Bohn gets used to this new normal.

But he _can't_.

Duen lifts a hand to card his fingers through the back of Bohn’s hair, torn in two from the outside in. He should be here. But he can’t, not yet.

And maybe, if he figures this out . . .

He refuses to dwell on the possibilities too much. Everything hangs on such a thin thread right now, so tentative and precarious that it make anxiety flare in him whenever he gives it too much thought. There's a dozen and a half emailed attachments in his inbox, waiting to be printed and filled out, a paltry first step on a long, long road ahead. "There's a patient," Duen whispers, careful to mind his wording while everything is still so fragile, "two of them actually, that really need my help right now. It's been distracting me," he admits. "But it's _important_. I . . . I want you to meet them."

"Huh?"

"Not yet," Duen clarifies. "But soon. Hopefully _really_ soon."

Bohn stays quiet for a bit, palpable confusion in the air before the hands he has curled in the back of Duen’s shirt wind just a little tighter. "Okay."

Duen can smell his bemusement, the lingering trace of his hurt that he fears won't fade for awhile yet, and holds him impossibly closer, face tucked into the crook of Bohn’s neck until all he can feel and smell and taste and hear is _them_. 

"I'll introduce them to you as soon as I can, phi," he swears, a promise with equal weight as the one that brought him to his decision. He says it, and each word is burdened with everything he can't tell him yet. 

_I want to bring them home to you. I want them to be ours. I want to see your eyes light up when you meet them._

~~~***~~~

"That is the thickest file folder of shit I have _ever_ seen," Nok says when Duen shows up for his next shift, aforementioned folder of paperwork in hand. "Don't you want to hole punch it and shove it in a binder instead? If you drop that thing it's gonna scatter everywhere like a Disney Channel romcom plot."

Duen sighs. "I can't staple it or hole punch it. It has to all be paperclipped after it's filled out." He'd made a similar face to the one Nok is making now when his lawyer had told him that, actually. 

Nok shrugs. "Suit yourself. Might want to leave it here, though. You have a visitor." He lifts both eyebrows meaningfully and nods down the hall to where a woman a few years older than Duen is sitting in the visitors chairs. 

Duen frowns in her direction for a moment, confused, before it sinks in what Nok's expression is conveying. He tries to quell the quick, cold fury that threatens to overtake him as soon as it does. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, he knows. Also, he can't make a scene, not when his lawyer specifically and repeatedly reiterated that he'll need her cooperation moving forward. "When did she show up?" He hears himself ask.

"Little while before you did," Nok mutters. "I figured I'd let you handle it, since you've been pretty close with Maimai, and P'Pancake already chewed me out for my bedside manner twice this week."

Duen hums an affirmative. "Alright. Can you check in on Maimai while she's here though? I don't want them running into each other."

"I do," Nok snorts. "Little alpha girl trying to rip someone like that apart? That would be the highlight of my _year_. Careful though, she's upper echelons omega, old money for sure with that gaudy jewelry. She won't fight you herself, she's got people for that."

Duen’s lip curls. Great. He’s only briefly encountered another omega like that, Bohn’s own mother, who hasn't bothered to say a word to her son since he was eighteen. "Go take care of Maimai for a bit," he reiterates. "She thinks you're funny."

"I feel like that's an insult?" Nok mutters, but goes before Duen can confirm that it definitely is. 

Dia's mother is pretty much exactly what Duen expected her to be, and everything Maimai had warned him about. She looks disinterested when he approaches, studying her nails as if the dirt beneath them is worth more time than what could have possibly summoned her here. And when Duen stops in front of her, she glances at him with such an unimpressed look he can't decide whether to be offended or not. "Well?" She says blandly. "Are we going to a room, or the morgue?"

Duen desperately hopes Nok is good at distracting Maimai, because if she finds out about this and gets loose, Duen will _help her_. He clears his throat, settles the threat of a growl that he forces to stagnate before it can resound in his chest. "Ma'am," he says slowly, "I'm afraid there was an accident-"

"So it's the morgue," she sighs. "What a waste. Do you have the effects?"

Bile crawls up Duen’s throat. "Ma'am, your _daughter_ -"

"She stole both family rings when she left. I just need to know if those were recovered."

Duen thinks of the paltry little bag of things that had belonged to Dia, the image of the rings in his mind as he says, "No. Just an empty wallet. Ma'am, we need you to fill out some forms, help us figure out where to send her for funeral rights, get you set up for grief counseling if you need it." He swallows. "And then, there's the matter of the babies . . ."

He feels sick when a faint spot of interest lights her eyes. "Oh! I didn't realize they made it. Can I see them?"

The halls are mostly empty this time of morning, and Duen leads her to the NICU with stiff strides, stiffer breaths. She complains about the scrubs he has her don, the gloves too, and he stands with his arms folded while she peers into the twin incubators, his heart ratcheting behind the cage of his ribs. The way she studies them makes his skin crawl, like she’s looking over a grocery deli counter. 

"I'll take this one," she says, tapping a finger to the plexiglass over the infant girl.

Duen _barely_ reigns in a snarl. Fuck. _Fuck_. The nurse yesterday had been _right_. 

There are still cruel people in the world, disgusting prejudices. And Duen is just as dismayed as he is _fucking livid_. 

"You can adopt both of them," he says, every syllable measured so it doesn't escape him laced with obvious fury, "or you can adopt _neither_. There are laws about twins, they're _bonded_ in the womb." That’s why the girl cries whenever her brother is moved too far from her, and without the scent of a parent to soothe them, that biological connection to each other is all they have. "You can't have just one. It's literally _illegal_."

And thank god for that. 

The woman levels him that considering look next, a dangerous glint to her eyes. "I could take it to court," she says, silky smooth. "My husband passed years ago, you know. No one would expect me to be able to handle _two_ babies."

"No court on earth would give you custody," Duen says, deathly steady in tenor despite how much he wants to bare his teeth, "once they found out you disowned your pregnant daughter."

The way she purrs, like the sound is a weapon, a siren song, makes every hair on the back of his neck stand up. "Oh? Prove it."

Duen heaves in a breath and jerks a thumb towards the big glass window looking into the NICU. He noticed it awhile ago, but the timing makes the fact that his plan had failed worth it when Dia's mother turns to look where he's indicated and makes dead eye contact with Maimai, who's managed to press up against the glass despite Nok, Pancake, _and_ her aunt trying to wrangle her. It’s impressive, considering her shattered kneecap and broken ribs. 

Dia's mother pales immediately, her pallor whitening further when Maimai snarls out a sharp, "I've always wondered if your blood was red or _gold_!"

"Ugh! I'd think your security would be better here!" Dia's mother gasps, a hand to her heart (or the approximation of where her heart would be if she had one, Duen supposes). 

"We don't use security measures on the recovering patients," Duen informs blandly. "Ma'am, we're really just here for paperwork. Signatures for funerary rights, and then for relinquishing the infants into foster care. If you have no intention of claiming _both_ babies, that's all I have for you."

The glare she levels him with is the first semblance of real emotion he's seen on her, and he hates how much it reminds him of Bohn’s father. Her only fury is in how she’s been denied getting her way. "You have some nerve," she whispers icily. "Do you know who I am?"

"I do," Duen confirms. "And I don't care. I just need the appropriate forms signed. There's a body downstairs that needs to be put to rest, and a couple of kids that need to go _home_. If you prefer, we can get a lawyer down here to cite the legality of throwing a minor in your care out onto the streets, or you can just help us with moving the paperwork along."

It's the right thing to say. He knows she's not quite as stupid as she's pretending to be, and the way she shifts from venemous to teary is calculated. "I could sue you. Treating me like this, I just found out I lost my daughter!"

"Would you like to pay for the funeral and cremation? We have a patient and quite a few staff members who'd like to give proper respects if you're offering. A viewing and catering for a hundred would probably suffice."

Her lip curls. "Where's the paperwork?"

~~~***~~~

There's a quiet little courtyard behind the hospital, shaded between it and the next building over, lined on the other two sides with trees and cool stone benches. Maimai sits with Duen on one of them, a cup of too-thick coffee in her hands. 

"She was always like that," she mutters against the rim of it before taking a sip. "Such a fucking _bitch_. The one time Dia got to play a game she flubbed a serve, and her mae called her a disgrace in front of the entire team afterwards. She was like _twelve_."

". . . I hope . . . I hope her whole life wasn't like that," Duen whispers. It breaks his fucking heart to think it, especially because he knows with the clarity of experience that it very likely was. If she'd made it, Duen would have fought to take all three of them. 

To his relief though, Maimai shakes her head. "Her phorh . . . She was a daddy's girl. He loved her a lot. She kept saying she wanted to make sure her kids grew up the way she did before he died. And besides," she flexes both arms, wincing only a little as the motion undoubtedly pulls at her injured ribs. "The team took care of her! Our little water girl. We did all the stuff good phis do, she sucked at volleyball but we took her to every game anyways. Dia always made overnights a blast, she could sweet talk her way into every part of the joints we stayed at. One time," she snickers into a palm, "we all roasted marshmallows over one of those huge hotel kitchen stoves. I was high off my ass, so when Dia set one on fire and started freaking out I just about died." Her laughter cuts off at the end, hitches into a hiccup, and Duen settles a hand on her shoulder as she scrubs hastily at her eyes. "She was a good kid. She _was_. You'll tell them that, right?"

"Tell who?"

"Her babies. When they're old enough to understand." Maimai glances up at him, her stare intense. "You _promised_."

He did. But, "I think," he says carefully, "it will mean more if their auntie Maimai is the one that tells them."

". . . Oh . . ."

She's always so quick to hide her tears, grief tucked away behind palms and blankets, a turned head or a hasty wipe of her eyes, but Duen figures it's good for her to cry like this, too, openly. "Y-you mean it?" She chokes out. "Don't t-tease me if you don't! I know I'm pretty fucked up, but i-if you're s-serious . . . I'd _really_ like that . . ."

"I am serious," Duen assures softly. "They should have someone who loved their mother in their life, so they know that she loved them, too."

"She did," Maimai hiccups. "She loved them _so much_."

He lets her cry, a hand held out that she takes, squeezes in the depths of the grief he's been worried she's held back too much of. This time, she cries for awhile, the courtyard quiet save for her shuddering sobs for many long, summer warmed minutes. "My ribs hurt," she complains once she's settled into overwrought, hitching but still slightly wet breaths. "Can I see them again before you take them home, though?"

Duen smiles, "It'll be a few weeks still till they can leave the hospital. There's a lot of paperwork to file, and they have to be declared stable enough to be outside of incubation first. Plus," he adds, "I have to bring my partner to meet them."

"Oh! You have a pretty omega at home!" She smirks. "Won't she be jealous that you've been handling another omega's kids?"

" _He_ ," Duen corrects casually, "will not." He wonders how much to tell her, especially after her eyes widen with mild surprise. "My husband was fourteen when he had his first baby. If anyone is going to love those two until they’re spoiled half to death, it's going to be him."

"Oh. He’s like . . . That's why you . . ." She falters. "Can I . . . Meet him too?"

"Of course you can. You'll get along like a house on fire." Hopefully not _literally_. "He might be the only person I know that has more swear words in their vocabulary than you."

Maimai scowls. "I fucking doubt that."

~~~***~~~

It takes _three weeks_ for the paperwork to get processed, and that's with their family lawyer running himself absolutely ragged. "The fact that you adopted your eldest really helped speed things up," he explains when they meet for lunch during one of Duen’s shifts. "Cases of alpha and omega couples having any adoptions, let alone successful ones, are _rare_ . I was able to push it through quickly just because it was interesting enough to get looked at immediately. Also I may or may not have called every place it needed approval from _incessantly_. But that's beside the point." He leans across the table, almost conspiratably, "My daughter is adopted. So this is important to me. Eko was three when we got her, and foster care did a number on her. She didn't believe we were actually keeping her until _this year_ , and she's _six_ now. Any case where I can make sure a kid doesn't get lost in the system because of gross prejudices like what happened with her is a job I can be proud of."

Still though, even with Tine's expedited finesse, three weeks is a long time for Duen to leave Bohn in the lurch about what's happening, and it's only after he's already scheduled the last step, the home inspection, that he sits him down. 

He waits till Del and Day are at school, the house lulled with mid summer morning light as he tugs Bohn onto their bed, holds his hands and seats himself across from him. "I know I've been being a jerk for over a month now-"

" _Duen_."

"- _but_ ," Duen continues without pause. "I didn’t want you to get invested in something that might not end well. So I had to make sure. The paperwork is mostly done, it just needs a few more things signed off on after the home inspection I've scheduled. The only thing left is . . . Is making sure that . . . That _you_ want this." Duen knows it'll be alright, that despite Thara briefing him _extensively_ on how difficult it is for most omegas to bond with non-biological kids, that Bohn isn't like that. "I want to take you to the hospital," Duen explains, "to meet two babies. And then, in a couple of weeks once they're big enough, I want to take them home."

". . . Take . . . Them home?" 

He sounds genuinely confused, and Duen smiles, squeezes his hands in his, and clarifies, "Here. I want to take them home _here_. To _our_ home."

Bohn’s eyes widen, and Duen watches, every nerve in his body electrified, how he visibly trembles until his breath staggers from his lungs in an audible hitch. His gaze is slightly wild, the tiniest bit unreadable with how startled he is, but Duen knows that sound, he's sure of it. He’s heard it before, punctuated across the sight of positive pregnancy tests, reassurances of futures made and vowed together. It's the noise Bohn tries to stifle when he's been presented with something he didn't know he could have, but suddenly, desperately _wants_.

Or at least that's what Duen thinks it means, even when the only responses Bohn manages is a rather weak, almost whispered, "Oh."

And then he's just _quiet_. Duen holds his breath, unsure of what to say as Bohn's gaze wanders around the room, then over him, almost searching. His hands are shaking where they’re still resting in Duen’s grip, and every inhale he takes in from his nose seems to heave through him, the rise and fall of his chest shallow, then all at once ragged and deep. "We don't have to," Duen whispers finally, uncertain now because Bohn still hasn't said anything. There's the faintest trace of fear in the air, just enough to taste. Duen swallows past his own doubt. "This needs to be something we both want," Duen says. "And as much as I . . . It doesn’t have to be us," he assures. "But I'd like it to be. If you're not okay with it though, there are other options."

It hurts to say it, to think of the twins being anywhere but _here_ , but right now Bohn is staring at him, almost stricken, and Duen’s priority will always be the family he already has before the one that’s still just a possibility. 

The tears aren't quite unexpected, but they do appear alarmingly fast. Bohn lets go of his hands, clearly taken aback by his own emotions creeping up on him, and Duen waits as he rubs trembling palms over his eyes in a futile attempt to quell them. It's pretty far from the way in which he usually cries, silent save for a few choked and soft breaths, the frown that forms on his face giving away that the longer it goes on, the more frustrated he gets. He's overwhelmed, Duen realizes, reaching out to soothe a hand over his neck, the line of his jaw, brushing away the tears that fall before Bohn can wipe them away. 

"C-can . . . Can I see them?" Bohn hiccups after a heartbeat, so wavering and unsteady that Duen almost can't decipher the syllables of it. Once he does, though, warmth blooms in his chest so fast and fierce it leaves him dizzy with affection and relief. 

"Do you want to go right now?" 

Bohn nods.

~~~***~~~

The drive over is mostly silent. Bohn is jittery in the passenger seat, hands twisting around the hem of his shirt in his lap. Duen’s done his reading after Thara’s warnings, and even without them he knows well enough how to read Bohn by now to recognize how utterly _terrified_ he is.

He won't have that intrinsic bond with these babies the way he did his own. They aren't hardwired to need him, or love him, from birth; and for Bohn, who tends to doubt himself into misery at times, that knowledge must be weighing heavy on his mind. Duen wonders, suddenly, how much Bohn has relied on the instantaneousness of that bond for his own comfort over the years, fallen back on it whenever he encountered a mistake he thought irreparable. It probably wasn't often, but Duen’s sure now that it had been just frequent enough that Bohn’s thinking of it now. 

He remembers a quiet moment, Bohn holding Day close when he was just under six, apologizing with hitching breaths for not protecting him better, and then sagging with relief when Day had wrapped his arms around his neck. 

Thara is waiting for them in the front entryway of the hospital, mostly dressed down in a set of scrubs decorated with tiny cartoon alligators rather than his usual white coat. "They've set up room 412 for you," he says when Duen casts him a glance. 

"We get a room?" Bohn asks. 

Duen takes his hand as he leads the way to the elevator. "Sort of. They're giving us space for you to be with the babies for awhile. There's not a whole lot of modern precedent for this, so providing a room for acclimation purposes was what we determined would probably work best. You can either go home at the end of the night or you can choose to stay. It's still another week or so until we can take them home," he adds when Bohn makes an audibly distressed noise at the thought of sleeping at the hospital. "Let's just see how this goes, and then you can decide."

Duen’s pretty sure he'll end up staying though, regardless or perhaps in spite of past unease with facilities like this. The second Bohn falls for the babies he'll refuse to leave them alone here, which is why Duen preemptively packed an overnight bag for him and has it with him now, mostly unnoticed with how distracted Bohn already is. 

Room 412 is a standard set-up, its only defining feature the window that overlooks the shaded little courtyard. It has a bed, a tiny cramped bathroom, and the required sink installation near the door. Nothing fancy, but with enough space that Bohn almost immediately sets about pacing it, and not just out of nerves. Duen doesn't miss the cadence to the way he moves, the deliberate set of his steps, or the absentminded manner with which Bohn starts brushing his wrists over things as he walks. He's _prepping_ , Duen notes, delight curling ardently in his chest. It’s like pre-nesting, sort of, a practice that's not observed enough to show up in grade school level textbooks on biology. Bohn’s been given a new territory to set up, is anticipating the need for it to smell like it belongs to him because he _knows_ the twins are going to be in it. He’s going through the first tentative steps at setting up a non-biological bond even if he definitely doesn't realize he’s doing it. 

It's extremely similar to how he'd acted when they'd bought their first apartment together, back when they were nervously figuring out how to have Ben in their lives full time. Duen tries not to grin too widely when he swings the duffle he'd packed off his shoulder and offers it to Bohn. "Here. This might help."

Bohn takes it wordlessly, unzipping it to pull out a couple of blankets from the top before setting the rest aside. The first one is the same dinosaur printed fabric from Bee he's been favoring since she moved out, but the second is the nearing-threadbare quilt he's fond of for his actual nesting. He drapes them over the bed without comment, and Duen waits, amused, for the incredulous stare he knows is coming. And to his credit, he only laughs a little when Bohn eventually twists around to cast it in his direction. "Did you just- am _I_ -"

Duen waves his hands in mock surrender. "You're not nesting," Duen smiles. "Not really. If anything it's more like a faux nesting, getting ready for a child that's already been born." 

Bohn levels him with an extremely put-upon frown, but doesn’t comment further, absorbed in his task again the second he looks away. Duen figures that means it's as good a time as any to bring the twins in. 

He goes to get them himself, enduring long-suffering looks from Pancake who helps him unhook the pair from their vitals monitors before they're placed in much more basic plexiglass bassinets. They're not on ventilators any more even just for precautionary purposes, and Duen takes a moment to praise them on it, brush a hand over slightly thicker baby curls and a thumb across even pudgier cheeks. "Your dad," he says softly, "is going to fall in love with you so fast you won't even know how to handle all the extra attention you'll get."

"What if he doesn't?" Pancake asks, ever cynical (although when Duen had called her out on it prior, she'd called it being "realistic"). 

"He will," Duen says lightly, but firmly. He knows Bohn will, because he knows _Bohn_. 

His husband is sitting on the bed when he wheels the bassinets in, fiddling with the corners of one of the blankets. The second the little plexiglass tubs pass the threshold into the room his nostrils flare, pupils visibly dilating while he tenses up. It's a sure sign that he's falling back on instinct first, likely still uneasy about the entire prospect. For some, Duen knows, that would be disconcerting, but for Duen it's almost a respite. Bohn always gets instinct addled when he's stressed, soothed by the simplicity of the mindset. He doesn't overthink as much this way, won't work himself up unless he decides the situation poses a threat. And largely, Duen knows, it means his approach will end up as unguarded as it can possibly be. 

Bohn slides off the edge of the bed slowly as soon as Duen sets the bassinets within his line of sight and backs up. His steps have turned measured again, rhythmed like the slow beat of a prowl as he circles them. They're given a fairly wide berth at first, Bohn trailing around the outermost extents of the room before he creeps a little closer. Each cycle brings him nearer, close enough for Duen to make out that he's trembling, note the slight parting of his lips as he tastes the air. And the twins are oblivious to all of this, of course, quiet in their bassinets save for the occasional burble. It's those noises that seem to draw Bohn in finally, have him taking those last few tentative strides to stand in front of where they’re been left flushly side by side. 

And there it is, Duen sees, that flash of something sparking into life in Bohn’s eyes, heady and warm and so immediately enamored that it takes Duen’s breath away. This time, he knows that look with such certainty that he's sure it's carved into his bones. 

"Oh," Bohn whispers. "They're so . . . They're so _small_."

He lifts a hesitant hand towards the boy first, then stalls and shifts in the direction of the girl instead only to falter again. He blinks, lower lip tugged up between his teeth, and then jerks his gaze up to give Duen the most bewildered look he's ever seen. "I . . ." He starts, stops. "I only have _two hands_."

Duen barks out a laugh.

"It's not funny!" Bohn insists. "There's _two of them_! I can't hold one and not the other! That's not fair! What the hell do I do!?"

It's such a silly thing to freak out about, but it's also so _Bohn_ that Duen can’t help but snicker, the sound choked back on when Bohn continues to glare at him with such inordinate and somehow still entirely genuine distress. "Here," Duen laughs, gesturing to the bed. "I'll help. Luckily between both of us, we have _four_ hands."

Bohn scowls, but does as instructed. He practically dives onto the bed, assuming when Duen has secretly been calling the Protective Baby Position for close to two decades. Laying on his front, Bohn presses up on his elbows so that a careful space is left on the mattress below his head and the bulk of his chest, framed by his arms. It's the favored way he'd tended to lay in the nest or on the playmat with their other kids when they were infants, and it's been just long enough since he’s done it that Duen’s heart clenches on a beat when he does so now. 

He hands Bohn the boy first, pausing only long enough to observe the cautious way Bohn settles him to the left side of the space he's made before he scoops up the girl to pass over to him too. It's only once Bohn has them both tucked up under him and is staring down at them with wide eyes that he sits down next to him. 

"They're really small," Bohn says again, as if he can't quite believe it. 

"Twins tend to be a bit smaller at birth," Duen explains. "And they were just under two months premature on top of that."

Bohn nods along like he's listening, but Duen can tell his focus is already elsewhere, entirely fixated. He's so attentive when he moves to finally touch them properly, cautious fingers tracing out the sides of their faces with the back of his knuckles before he rather abruptly leans down. The girl is nuzzled over first, cheek to cheek, Bohn pressing a swift kiss to the fuzzy crown of her head before he shifts to do the same to the boy. There's a purr rumbling in his chest before he peeks Duen’s way again, a happy pink to his cheeks below amber bright eyes. "They smell like _you_."

Duen grins and shrugs. "I've, ah . . . Been inadvisably handling them quite a bit the last few weeks. As soon as the lawyer said we were likely to get approved to take them, I couldn't help myself."

Again, Bohn seems to be barely listening. He’s totally absorbed now, alternating between each twin as he scents them. His purr is a highway thrum in his chest, so loud that the twins seem transfixed by it ever time he noses over them, tiny hands grasping to hold at the front of his shirt with weak fingers before letting go. "So strong!" Bohn assures the girl when she lets out a frustrated little noise. He gets a hand beneath her to hold her closer to his chest, nose over her ear and cheek again, before doing the same for the boy. "And you, so thoughtful!" He coos to him in turn. "You're a philosopher, aren't you. I bet you're contemplating the secrets of the universe right now. Hey," he glances up at Duen, gaze shining. "Do they have names?"

Duen fidgets. "We can't officially name them until the paperwork is done being approved. But that's just paperwork, birth names. I figure giving them chue lens wouldn't hurt."

Bohn nods, humming a considering note for a moment before he casts Duen a teasing, knowing look. "You already have one in mind, don't you."

". . . Yeah," Duen admits softly. He scoots a little closer on the bed, a palm brushing over the head of first the boy, then the girl. "Their mom . . . She went by Dia."

"Dia," Bohn echoes. "I like it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Audoldens who REALLY has been putting up with me ranting about this fic since before the start of All The Little Things. Some of the funnier deets of this one were hashed out with them. 
> 
> More to come, obviously. Next part is going to be from Bohn’s perspective. 
> 
> Comments always appreciated! Thanks to everyone who has stuck with this monster of a verse!


	2. We Chart Our Paths Without Destinations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're not his, not quite yet, they won't cry out for him, reach for him, until they know that. Somewhere beneath the whirring of his mind he understands that that would probably be extremely off-putting for most omegas. But for Bohn, it only serves to make him more determined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for how late this one is, I've been under the weather for awhile (not the plague lol, I tested negative for that, thank god). But here it is! Finally! Enjoy!

Bohn has been truly scared quite a few times in his life, none of them good. He'd been terrified at fourteen, self loathing and unprepared. At twenty-three he'd been apprehensive, on edge, for a future unplanned but still very much wanted. And he'd been stricken at thirty-four, the scent of blood in his nose as cruel reality set in.

It's almost like clockwork, spaces in time set apart decade by decade. But in this instance his fear is palpably different, uncertain and at the same time so inexplicably _happy_ that it's overwhelming.

He's wiping away tears for exactly that reason, sucking in staggered breaths that aren't quite sobs, everything he tries to say catching around hitching inhales. Duen’s there, though, patiently waiting, a hand reaching out to brush his thumb over the line of his jaw, the scent glands on his neck. And there are _so many_ things Bohn wants to say, too. Expressions of bewilderment, affection, gratitude. It's been so long, and sometimes he's still taken aback by how much Duen just _gets_ him. He hopes Duen’s realized that already, that he's not crying because he's upset, but rather simply because his body just doesn't know what else to do with such a sudden excess overflow of emotion. He’s ecstatic. He’s afraid. He’s _known_. And he’s been consumed by grief for the recent days that had felt half lived. Having that especially leave him in a rush is what's made him the most unbalanced.

Maybe it was foolish to feel that way, he acknowledges. It's not like the past year of working with Frong at F Flowers hasn’t been rewarding, in its own way, but it had been a job. Monotonous on its best days, a distraction at its worst. From the beginning it had just been a way to fill an ever growing void. 

There's a difference, Bohn knows now, between a career and a _life_. 

And while he'd given up that part of his own willingly, that doesn't mean he hadn’t missed it with every single fibre of his being. Just because the decision had been made in his and Duen’s best interests doesn't mean it didn't _hurt_. 

Forty-two is old enough to know your limits, to recognize the exhaustion creeping in. But it’s just young enough to still ache for what could have been. 

Somehow, a solution like this hadn’t even occurred to him. Most likely it was because his descent this time had been slow, days and months spent telling himself he was fine but being too quiet, too withdrawn, until Duen had finally sat him down. He'd taken his hand so as to twist his forearm into the light, agony in his eyes as he’d stared at the scab Bohn had been picking at for weeks by then. It had started out as a score left by a mishandled rose he'd been trying to clip, but it had been worried too deep by that point not to already be pink at the edges with new scar tissue. 

Both of them know he doesn't do it on purpose, but the absentmindedness of how he perpetuates it almost makes it worse. It's just something to do, a way to fill empty time he has too much of now, and before he knows it he doesn't mind the fact that it bleeds. 

He's been good though lately, he's sure. At least for the most part. And while even medication isn't enough to smooth over every scar in his heart, it does make things significantly better. When he smiles for his kids he means it. When he kisses Duen he _means it_. They're not half measures, not performative echoes, even though they’re done over that ever present agony he'd simply accepted he would live with forever.

And that was probably where his folly had really been, skulking in the shadows of how easily he'd settled himself into that state of just accepting everything. He'd done his best. He'd done enough. In the end, it didn't matter if he'd wanted more because he was already happy with what he had. 

Forty-two is just old enough to long for what could have been, and young enough to think that's fine. 

They say you can't miss what you never had, but that's so far from the truth it's comical. The world is full of missed chances, overlooked opportunities, places and people you'll never see or meet that are tied to experiences you'll never have. Life is meant to leave you grasping for as many of those as you can, fumbling until you either find yourself resigned or satisfied. But Bohn has been stuck in between; happy, but intrinsically aware that he could have had _more_. 

He has it now though, right? Duen is giving it to him, has stumbled upon a situation that had called to him to act, and he’d done so without hesitation not just because it was right but because he knew they could take it on. Together. It's that thought that finally manages to let the words form on the edge of his tongue, overwrought tears giving away for something much more important. "C-can . . . Can I see them?" 

Duen beams at him. He looks _so happy_ , ecstatic with that same energy that's brought Bohn to tears in the first place. "Do you want to go right now?" he asks, as Bohn would want anything but.

He nods.

~~~***~~~

To say Bohn is a bit out of it is an understatement. The drive to the hospital is a blur while he tries not to jitter out of his skin. Fuck, he's not sure he's ever been this nervous. His other kids had known they were his from the start because they smelled like him, had spent nine months soothed by the lullaby of his heartbeat. It wasn't really that they loved him from the get-go so much as that they knew, instinctively, that _he_ loved _them_. They could cry, and scream, and fuss, and he would be there. They would have someone to reach for who would hold them when they were upset, purr to send them to sleep, praise them when they were happy. He worries now that these babies are so small, so untethered from that initial bond, that they won't understand that. 

Fucking hell, Bohn realizes. He hasn't even met them yet and his heart is already clenching with affection. Ugh. He's such a _sap_. 

Duen likes that about him though, and Bohn’s always suspected that was what made him fall for him, too. It's probably pretty difficult not to end up head over heels in love with someone who dives into a river to save your drowning kid sister without a second of hesitation. 

He's so busy overthinking that he almost doesn't notice when they park, his mind racing around all the ways he can try and make sure the babies know they're his. Will scenting them be enough? Skin to skin? They'll have zero object permanence, so if he leaves a room without that basic scent-based bond, will they understand that he's coming back? How long will it take for something like that to stick, anyways, without it relying on biology? Days? Weeks? Fuck. What if it's years. What if it takes _years_ for them to instinctively understand that their place in Bohn and Duen’s lives is permanent?

He's still thinking of those things when Duen leads him to a lonely little room on the fourth floor. It's nice, sort of. Nice for a hospital at least. But Bohn has always hated hospitals, and the very smell of them makes his skin crawl. He paces the room with that in mind, instantly displeased with the sterile atmosphere, the stiff sheets on the bed, the white walls. None of it makes a good place for a _baby_ , certainly not one of his at the very least. The way he moves is entirely absentminded, his brain still jumbled with other thoughts as he brushes his wrists over things, picks up a pillow to rub his cheek across it, and then circles the room again to repeat. It's only as he's kneading at the starchy bedding that he realizes what he's doing, well after Duen has already passed him a couple of familiar, well loved and homey smelling blankets. 

Bohn whips around to stare at him, mouth half open in surprise, glaring as Duen starts to laugh at him behind a hand. "You're not nesting," Duen assures quickly after Bohn sputters at him, embarrassed and bewildered all at once. "Not really. If anything it's more like a faux nesting, getting ready for a child that's already been born."

Well that's stupid, Bohn decides, and quickly reabsorbs himself in what he was doing. He's not fucking _faux_ nesting. Why should it have such a half-assed term? They're _his_ babies now, right? The second he gets home he's going to tear the house apart and _actually_ nest for them. 

He's sitting on the bed when Duen comes back in, only semi-satisfied with his progress on the room. It makes him antsy, how cold it all still seems, and he has half a mind to send Duen back to the house for more blankets when his attention is so thoroughly diverted he forgets about that thought entirely. Duen’s wheeled in two little plexiglass bassinets, and the second Bohn actually takes in the sight of them every hair on the back of his neck stands on end. It's not fear, per say, as much as it is just a general wariness, anxiety stirring in his gut as he slowly slides off the bed. 

Instinct keeps him at a distance, nostrils flaring, lips parted for breath as he resumes his circling of the room. With the space he's keeping between them, they don't have a scent, too encased in that sterile nothingness of the hospital for him to pick up on anything else. And also, they're quiet, which was exactly what he'd been apprehensive of in the first place. They're not his, not quite yet, they won't cry out for him, reach for him, until they know that. Somewhere beneath the whirring of his mind he understands that that would probably be extremely off-putting for most omegas. But for Bohn, it only serves to make him more determined. 

One of them lets out a little burble of sound, and Bohn steps closer in an instant. He’s all but holding his breath when he finally peers down into the bassinets. Every line of him is tense, balanced on a precipice of uncertainty because what if he's wrong? What if he can't bond with them and . . . 

Oh . . .

They're . . . 

"Oh," he whispers. He can feel his pupils dilating, his heart thundering as he stares down at them. "They're so . . . They're so _small_."

God, they're _tiny_. Ben had been his smallest baby, and Bohn is still sure that he'd been bigger than this even three weeks premature. He's almost worried about touching them, they're so little. Resolve flares in him as soon as he thinks that though. The smaller they are, the more they need to be protected, coddled. And that's what Bohn was _made for_. Or that's what he likes to tell himself at least. 

His hands reach for the one on the left first before a thought stalls him, and he starts towards the right instead. But that's not what he wants either, and he falters again, confused as it finally clicks what's wrong. How . . . How is he supposed to pick them both up at the same time? It's just a little too much, a frustrating moment where his instincts stumble when faced with something new, and he casts Duen a bewildered look as his brain tries to catch up. "I . . . I only have _two_ hands."

Duen of course laughs at him. Like an asshole. Bohn frowns. "It's not funny! There's two of them! I can't hold one and not the other! That's not fair! What the hell do I do!?"

It's fortunate that Duen seems to have the solution Bohn’s instinct addled mind fails to provide him, and gestures to the bed after a few more seconds of snickering. "Here, I'll help," he soothes. "Luckily between both of us, we have _four_ hands."

Later, Bohn decides, he's going to bite him for that. But that's later. Now, his focus is elsewhere. Mostly. 

He rolls onto the bed, getting comfortable on his stomach, pressed up on his elbows. They're so small, he reminds himself as he does it, they need to be sheltered. 

His heart is in his throat as Duen hands him the boy first, pausing just long enough for Bohn to tuck him up into the space he's made between the curve of his arms before he passes him the girl. The same is done to her, and Bohn tightens his position a bit so that they're resting with only the smallest gap between them, still carefully laying beneath the shadow of his body as he stares down at them again. "They're really small," he repeats in a whisper, probably quite inanely at this point, but he doesn’t care.

They're staring back at him now, previously sleepy eyes awake and wide. Duen is saying something, and Bohn nods like he's listening. He’s definitely not though. Cautious fingers are trailed over one chubby cheek, then another. Bohn’s not even sure he blinks as he does it, transfixed as he makes contact with warm skin, registers that their eyes seem more perplexed by him than anything. That won't do at all. He leans down before he even really contemplates it, nuzzling over the tops of fluffy baby hair, along those same pudgy little cheeks, purring as he does so. They should smell like him, know what he sounds like, all the things he hopes will tell them that they're _his_ , and it's only as he's pressing swift kisses to their soft and tiny heads that he registers that, from this close, they smell just a little bit like . . . "They smell like _you_ ," he gasps, delighted as he glances up at Duen again. 

They already smell like Duen, just enough to be noticed, which means they already have _their_ family scent. 

He purrs louder, distracted again while Duen tries to explain that he's been handling them ever since he'd decided to make them their own. It's a good start, Bohn thinks, a fantastic one really, even if it hasn't quite clicked for them yet. He noses at them again, absorbed in the task now. It's a claiming action, he recognizes distantly, familial marking. He's making a declaration every time he rubs a cheek, a wrist, over them, leaving signs of himself across every centimeter until he can be sure that they won't be mistaken as belonging to anyone but _him_. 

They've started to become interested in what he's doing, tiny hands reaching to grasp at the fabric of his shirt whenever he nuzzles at them only to release when he pulls back to do it all over again. The girl lets out a frustrated sound the third or fourth time it happens, and Bohn grins when she does. "So strong!" He assures, getting a hand under her to hold her that much closer, purr as he noses over her further. Setting her down again he turns to the boy to lavish him with equal affection. "And you, so thoughtful! You're a philosopher, aren't you. I bet you're contemplating the secrets of the universe right now. Hey," he glances up at Duen, then as the question solidifies in his mind. "Do they have names?"

Duen’s expression shifts, just a little, a certain sort of melancholy settling into his gaze that Bohn wishes he didn't recognize so easily. He explains that they can't choose birth names just yet, and Bohn pastes on his best teasing smile, something to warm the atmosphere back up, gratified when Duen mirrors it. Today should be a good day. "You already have one in mind, don't you," he says.

He's not an idiot. Of course there's a story here, grief; two beautiful little babies like this don't end up alone without that, Bohn knows. But that's something they can talk about later. _Today should be good_. He wants it to be remembered as the day the twins came _home_ , at least in his heart. Everything else comes later, when it won't marr the moment. 

In five years, ten, twenty, Bohn wants to be able to tell them that every second of their meeting was happy. 

Duen has moved closer, enough so that when he leans into the babies' line of sight, they wiggle a bit to try and look at him better. His gaze is soft when he brushes a palm over their heads, fond; not without that hint of sadness, but in spite of it. "Yeah," he murmurs. "Their mom . . . She went by Dia."

"Dia," Bohn echoes immediately. It's cute, and it's important. They should have that connection. "I like it." He hums thoughtfully, nuzzling at the newly named girl before he glances up again. "And for the boy?"

"You should name him," Duen says, almost too quickly. Bohn squints at him. "He . . . I think the two of you are going to be close."

"I'm close with all the kids," Bohn returns. Or at least that's what he'd like to think. Suspicion finds space in his brain though, has his hand shifting low to fiddle with the bracelet tag on the boy's ankle before he casts his eyes down to it. His heart sinks, just a little, realization making his eyes sting. Oh. So that's why no other family came to claim them after their mother . . . 

Bohn shakes his head, dislodges that heartbreaking thought before it can upset him too much. It doesn't matter now, if it ever did in the first place. "Hey," he whispers, leaning down to press a kiss to a chubby cheek, stroke reverent fingers over the top of his head. "Aren't you lucky? You and I are the same!"

He won't grow up under scrutiny, leveled with disdain, disgust, expectations set upon him for a status he'll never have. Because Bohn loves him already, and nothing will change that. 

That thought preoccupies him for awhile, a few more minutes dedicated to nosing over both babies, murmuring quiet affections they don't understand. It's only after Duen moves to start tracing idle shapes over his back that Bohn remembers what was asked of him. He blinks back to himself, shakes that instinctual focused daze off for a moment to try and think about it properly. "Should it match Dia? Or do we want to round it out with another B name?"

"The latter," Duen answers. 

Bohn chews on his lip, drumming gently across the boy's middle until he earns a gurgle that demands his full attention again. He grins, another kiss left at the baby’s forehead. "Maybe . . ." Bohn muses as he pulls back, just hazy enough at the edges that he knows it's only a matter of time before he's distracted entirely. "Blue?"

Duen considers the suggestion with pursed lips and a raised eyebrow. "That doesn't sound like a car brand . . ."

"It's not," Bohn assures. 

Duen narrows his eyes at him, just the slightest bit disbelieving, before he nods. "Blue is good. I like it."

"Blue and Dia it is then," Bohn grins.

He wonders how long it will take for Duen to remember that the color of his current sports car is blue. 

~~~***~~~

Whoever decided to call it prepping, or faux nesting, instead of actually nesting, must have had a really shitty crop of omegas to study. Because the only difference Bohn notes between what he's doing and actual nesting is the fact that he continually gets frustrated by the space he's in, and that's entirely due to the fact that he's stuck doing it in a hospital. The bed is too small, the room too sterile, and Duen not being able to stay the night with him has him on edge the second he leaves. Logically he knows he shouldn't be. He didn't acquire these babies through hours of labor, so technically his instincts aren't on high alert because he's physically weakened. However, as much as he wishes he could, he hasn't forgotten the way in which Ben came into the world. 

Duen spends nearly an hour before he leaves soothing him for that very reason. Long minutes are languished on scenting, soft bites left along Bohn’s neck until he's pliant, calmed, lulled by Duen’s steady and reassuring purr. "It's just for a few hours," Duen reminds as he traces shapes over his spine. "I'll be back as soon as I drop Day and Del off at school in the morning."

Bohn hums what affirmation he can manage, but knows it falls a bit short by the way Duen immediately holds him a little closer. "M'sorry," he mumbles. He knows he's being silly, but that doesn't make it any easier. "I'll be fine, though." Of course he will. Because his fucking dumbass instincts are going to kick into overdrive the second he actually thinks he's in danger. Still, it's unlikely. The staff aren't idiots either, they know better than to intrude in the room without warning when it's as good as nested in. 

"You can call me if it ends up being too much," Duen reminds. "You don't have to stay."

While that's true, Bohn already knows that won't be happening. The only thing worse than him being here would be leaving the twins alone, and he is way too far gone already to even consider that. "I'll be fine," he repeats. 

The first few minutes after Duen heads out definitely suck regardless though. Bohn spends awhile redoing the bed, carefully arranging and rearranging the blankets (including the extras Duen had been more than happy to fetch from home for him). He runs his cheek over everything, relentless when it comes to any of the fabric that still has that sterile hospital smell clinging to it. 

It's just a little past dusk, and Bohn is fiddling with the curtains over the window when one of the twins starts crying. There's a difference, and he notes it immediately when he scrambles back over the bed to scoop Blue up out of the plexiglass bassinet. Where all of his other kids had grabbed onto him as soon as he’d tucked them close to his body, Blue just squirms and fusses louder. He drags Dia's bassinet closer to the bed when he sits, worrying that her brother's upset might trigger her too, but she just stares balefully at him through the clear sides. 

It hurts, even though he fully expected it, to realize that they don't recognize him yet. Blue is taking very little comfort in even being held, still wriggling like a caught fish in Bohn’s arms until he rolls over to set him on the bed. It’s going to be difficult, Duen had briefed him extensively on that, but Bohn really only sees that as a challenge. He has time, and he’s going to do his damndest to make sure these babies know they're his. 

At the very least Blue knows that a purr is soothing. That's a base instinct not necessarily tied to scent or any other innately biological connection. He quiets down as soon as Bohn starts it rumbling in his chest, wails sniffling out into unhappy hiccups until he's still enough that Bohn can nuzzle at him. "What’s wrong, cute stuff?" He asks, as if this tiny little thing could possibly respond. But Bohn likes to think he’s pretty good at reading kids by now, verbal or not. Both babies were fed just before Duen left, and he can't find any obvious signs of discomfort. Sometimes though, babies are just unhappy in general. The world is new and wide, with too many things that are incomprehensible, and the only thing you can do is scream about it. It's probably extra disconcerting, Bohn decides, to have spent so much of those first few days isolated. As far as he's been informed, they've mostly been kept separated from each other too, which makes him more uncomfortable than he can express. 

On a whim, Bohn sits up again to retrieve Dia as well. She's not as disquieted as her brother, but she does get a little squirmy until he sets her down beside him. To his delight, it works. Blue goes silent the second he has them nestled beside each other. Bohn can't help but purr at the sight, even more enamored than he was even a few minutes prior. "Cuuuute," he grins, curling his arms around both of them to nose across their fuzzy heads. "Ah, I love you so much already, you know that? If you don't, I'm going to make sure you do."

The first night is, to put it nicely, _rough_. Bohn’s used to not sleeping with newborns, what he isn't used to is not being able to soothe them. Sure, both babies settle down eventually when they start crying, but that's only after long minutes stretching into an hour at times. He does his best though, rocking them, tucking them close to his body as he paces the tiny expanse of the room. He purrs for them, disheartened when it doesn't work, elated when it does. There's no consistency to it though, no way for him to tell when he's doing something right or not. Then again, Bohn’s pretty sure he's doing everything right, the problem is just that they don't understand. 

Which sort of makes it worse. And every time he murmurs a soft, "I'm here, I'm here," it takes him a moment to remember that that doesn't matter to them. Not yet. 

Right now, he's still just a stranger.

He's worn out by the time Duen returns in the morning, and he must look it too by the way he gets fussed over. "M'fine," he assures when Duen runs a hand through his hair to brush unkempt bangs from his eyes. "Can you look after them though so I can go sulk in the shower for a bit?"

Duen levels him with a hefty side eye. "Bohn. You didn't need to nest with them all night. That's why I left the bassinets in here." He points to a button on the side of the bed Bohn’s been purposefully ignoring. "And there were nurses on call to help if you needed a break."

Bohn shakes his head. "No breaks. They won't get used to me if I'm not with them as much as I can be." He gestures to his paltry attempt at nesting on the bed. "If you put them in those bassinets, by the way, I will know, and I will _bite_ you."

He gets a very startled, "Uuuuuhhhh?" for that, and decides he doesn't care before he stumbles to the shower. 

True to his word, Bohn uses his brief shower time to sulk. Not about anything in particular, he knows he’s doing his best, that it will work eventually, he's just tired and sad. It'll wear off though. 

Like with most good things, this will just take time. 

He practically dives back into the bed once he's out, ignoring Duen’s startled squawk as he does so. Duen has both babies settled gently in his lap, and Bohn doesn't bother to move them since they seem comfortable. They're significantly less squirmy for him, Bohn notes, trying not to be too terribly jealous about it. After all, Duen’s been handling them for a few weeks already, so while his scent on them isn't very strong, it's definitely still there. Bohn fits as much of himself in his lap too, arms around Duen’s middle as he curls along one of his knees and pillows his head near his hip. It's definitely an awkward position, but he doesn’t care, not when it means he can touch both his husband and the twins all at the same time. 

"Are you going to sleep?" Duen asks semi-apprehensively when Bohn doesn't successfully stifle a yawn.

"Maybe. Just for a little while."

He thinks he catnaps for a solid hour before the twins, both unfortunately, start snuffling with the first hiccups of hungry cries. Bohn sits up too fast, wincing as he knocks the top of his head on the underside of Duen’s chin before uttering a quick apology and fumbling to decide which infant to pick up first. Duen makes the choice for him, clearly not as concerned about potentially playing favorites as he takes Blue and coos soft sympathies at him while Bohn settles Dia into his arms. 

"You were asleep," Duen says once they've got them settled again, a nurse having brought in a pair of bottles. "But I started saying how I should probably leave you to things by yourself tomorrow so I can go shopping."

Bohn blinks, "Shopping for what?"

Duen lifts the elbow Blue is cradled against just a little, as if providing an example. Bohn watches him do it and remains perplexed. "Phi, we have a lot of baby stuff," he explains. "But we only have _singular_ sets of everything."

Oh. Oh _shit_. 

He's right, Bohn realizes. They have just one bedside bassinet at home, one crib, one swing. Even their collection of bottles and pacifiers and onesies is only really meant for one. When Bohn tries to picture _two_ toddlers in the playpens they have, or on the mats, he falters as it hits him that even those aren't suited to their new needs. "Oh no," he breathes, probably a little unduly horrified. "We need _so much stuff_."

Duen laughs. "Yeah, that was my panicked conclusion last night when I opened the old nursery closet. I started a list if you want to go over it together. You can check if I missed anything."

Bohn ends up spotting quite a few things he forgot (spit-up towels, a bigger trash bin for diapers, and the previously thought of playmat Duen hadn't even considered), but he's satisfied that everything else seems more or less in order. "Might as well just buy two completely new swings and cribs though," he adds once the list seems decent. 

Duen stares at him for a second, befuddled, before he deadpans, "You want them to match, don't you."

Bohn huffs, affronted. "No?"

"The only thing you didn't ask for a new one of out the big stuff is the bedside bassinet," Duen says knowingly. "And that's only because it's the single thing used on _all_ the kids."

Bohn sets a hand to his heart, "I would _never_. Anyways, if you could find a matching one to that on some vintage online seller with expedited shipping, that would be great."

Duen rolls his eyes.

~~~***~~~

By day three, Bohn thinks he's making progress. He's also sort of reaching the end of his rope though so he might just be hallucinating. But he _thinks_ they both seem happy to see him when they wake up, so he'll take whatever crumbs he can get. Duen left him with a book on exercises for premature babies, and he’s spent most of the day on that. It's tough to make it fun, at first, especially because Blue is especially less than enthused about everything other than the swaddling, which Bohn does only when they're sleeping since it's meant to be relaxing. He whines through everything else though, perfectly happy to show his discontent about it all to the world. Or at least to Bohn.

"I know it's repetitive," Bohn assures him as he brings Blue's hand to his face, then back again. Repeat. "But it's good for you, cute stuff. The book says you need a little extra work on some of this to catch up." To at least change it up a bit, Bohn shifts to pushing his legs up towards his stomach instead for awhile. "We have to get you all nice and strong before we can go home."

Blue is nonplussed. Bohn figures it's probably a little extra frustrating for him too, if he's at all old enough to notice that Dia doesn't need quite as much muscle stimulation. But Duen had assured him that it's fairly common for one twin to be bigger, and a little further ahead growth wise, than the other. At the very least she doesn't need the hand to mouth exercises, because Bohn had to call for a nurse to get him some mitts for her after she gave herself a good swat to the chin that drew a drop of blood. Whatever evolutionary advantage sharp nails provide to babies, Bohn doesn't understand it.

"You're doing so good," Bohn praises when Blue's face starts to scrunch up. "My big strong boy."

Unsurprisingly, Blue is not having it, and after a few seconds of further snuffling he bursts into tears. Bohn abandons the exercises immediately in favor of cuddling him instead, murmuring apologies he's not really sure are earned. "Oh, I'm sorry," he purrs, nuzzling over the top of his head. "You're right, it's tough. Let's take a break and snuggle a bit to make it better."

Really, he doesn’t actually expect it to work, especially not when he was the one who, technically, caused Blue's upset in the first place. But the second he tucks the baby up against his shoulder Blue gets tiny fists around the collar of his shirt and buries his face in the crux between the fabric and Bohn’s neck with a muted little whimper that trails along the end of one of his wails. 

Bohn freezes just from how caught off guard he is, breath hitching in his chest for a heartbeat as it sinks in. "Oh," he whispers. " _Blue_."

Great. Now he feels _really_ bad about the exercises, even if they are good for him. Can it actually be counted as progress when the first time Blue clings to him of his own accord is because Bohn was doing something he didn't like? Honestly, he feels pretty terrible about it. "I'm sorry," he says again, hushed as Blue hiccups on sob. "I promise it's for the best. Did I make you a little sore, luuk? Or was it just frustrating."

Blue, of course, doesn't answer him. He just tightens his still weak grip on the neck of Bohn’s shirt and sobs with the voice of the truly distressed. Which for any baby is just the normal sort of cry. Everything is upsetting when you're new and small and can't communicate with words. 

Bohn rubs a hand over his back, humming on a purr as Blue's cries slowly peter out. He's just as bummed now as he is quietly relieved. "I'm sorry," he repeats while Blue hiccups on the last of his dismay, still circling a palm across his spine. Blue buries his face further against his clavicle, and he can't help the tiniest smile that curls at his mouth. 

Progress is progress.

Regardless, he doesn’t push Blue with the exercises for the rest of the day. Instead he focuses on more skin to skin. Although, he’s not sure what good that does when both babies are still squirmy about it. It’s not that they don’t want to be held so much as they just don’t seem all that used to it being done for long periods of time. They’re far more comfortable with swaddling, or resting with Bohn just curled nearby. They fuss when he has them in his arms for more than a half hour or so, and he worries his lip about it enough that it’s been bleeding off and on by the time Duen returns the next day. 

“This feels like torture,” he whispers when Duen worriedly rubs a thumb over the dark circles under his eyes.

He gets a laugh for that. “I really doubt being hugged or touched is _torture_. They’ve spent the first entire month of their lives in an incubator, Bohn. I was the person who held them the longest before you, and that was really only when I could spare the time between patients and at the end of shifts. They’ll warm up. Also,” he holds up a long, twisted piece of fabric he’s brought with him that Bohn recognizes. “This might help.”

“That’s for _one_ kid,” Bohn reminds wryly, only for Duen to very sarcastically spread it between his hands to display that it is not, in fact, the same one Bohn used for his previous children. It’s a slightly lighter shade of blue, and it’s almost double the length of his old infant sling. “You’re sure they’re not too small?” he asks. 

Duen leans over to pat a hand to Blue’s tiny head where he’s nestled in the crook of Bohn’s arm with his fists tightly balled into the front of his shirt. “They should be fine. Obviously don’t sleep with them in it. And you might want to scent it first.”

Still a bit nervous, Bohn lifts the fabric to his face to discover that Duen definitely has already done exactly that. “Are you staying today?”

It’s just a tad disheartening to watch Duen shake his head, even though he already expected as much. “I still have a few things to get. Call me though if you need something,” he adds, and then, with that ferocity that has always made Bohn’s heart stutter, even now, “ _anything_. Okay?” Bohn nods, purring when Duen leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth and rub their cheeks together. “I know it seems like you’re not getting anywhere,” he murmurs as he pulls away, “but believe me, you are. They’re already so much more lively than they were even just yesterday.” He gestures to where Dia is cradled in Bohn’s lap and making a valiant attempt to pull one of her mitts off with her non-existent teeth. “You’re doing great.”

Bohn really doesn’t feel like he’s doing great though. At best he thinks he’s probably doing mediocre. Blue still only actively wants to be held when he’s frustrated, and Dia just seems disinterested in him in general. He decides not to use the sling right away, too focused on the monotony of scenting them whenever he can, nuzzling over skin and fabric until he’s satisfied that they won’t be mistaken as belonging to anyone else. Duen also brought them a set of soft plush shapes, supposedly good for helping with their grip and thus their arm muscles in general. He lets Blue fiddle with those while he lavishes Dia with attention for awhile. 

She’s feistier than her brother, at the very least, and definitely more vocal. While Blue mostly makes sounds when he’s upset or startled, Dia has found the joys of quiet burbles and spit bubbles. “So talkative,” Bohn assures when he gets one of the latter popped right against the tip of his nose and a gurgle that, at her age, might as well be a laugh. “Oh yeah, it’s really funny,” Bohn agrees. “You’re a comedian. I’ll make sure to tell Blue.” He turns to where Blue is laying barely a hand length away, trying to put the square plush block into his mouth. “Your sister thinks she’s very funny,” he intones.

To his surprise, the block is winged with alarming accuracy right at his face, but by Blue’s shocked expression, it was entirely unintentional. Still, Bohn bursts out laughing, hiding his snickers in the blankets bunched around Dia’s side. She gifts him a mitted pat to the cheek he’s pretty sure is done solely because his face is right there, rather than an offer of condolence. "You two are ganging up on me," he accuses her while he hands Blue back his block. "You're teaming up against me! That's so rude!" The statement is punctuated by blowing a gentle raspberry on Dia's belly, and he’s delighted when her burbling response turns into a gurgle of a squeal. When he lifts his head to glance at her face she's shaking both mitted hands at him, a gummy smile cast his way. And yeah, he knows that by this age her smiling is probably just a reflex, but it's still a _good_ reflex, and it blooms unbridled happiness in his chest all the same. 

"You can't fight me," he goads when she swats her hands in his direction. "You're just a baby. I can take on like at least twenty babies at once, easy. Like this!" He blows another raspberry to her stomach, earning an outright screech, and grins.

It's a good moment, one to save in the back of his mind for later when he finds himself discouraged again. "Admit defeat," he says when Dia swings her mitts towards him again. "You're no match for me, you're too small! If you concede the victory, you'll get the loser's reward."

Dia just blinks up at him with baleful eyes, of course not really understanding a word he says, and he swoops in to kiss both her chubby cheeks. "Defeated!" He declares while she gurgles.

To his mild alarm, for some reason this makes Blue _shriek_. Bohn twists to glance at him, startled until Blue tries to wing the block at his face again and instead it goes sailing to the complete opposite side and lands on the floor. "I have to wash that now," Bohn reprimands mildly, already reaching to scoop Blue up and tuck him closer. "That's fine though. I get it. It seems I have a _jealous_ boy on my hands," he purrs, smothering Blue with kisses too. 

Altogether, he thinks he's doing fairly well. Sure, they're still not really reaching for him of their own accord, but they seem happy. And for now, that's definitely enough.

He does need a little help with the stupid sling though. It's a goddamn contraption compared to his old one, and he gets just frustrated enough to finally hit the button for assistance that's hooked to the bed for the first time since he arrived.

The nurse that shows up is a wizened one, to say the least, and she gives him a pretty steady side-eye when she stalks into the room without any care for the fact that she's invading his nesting space. "You're Doctor Rattananumchock's omega, huh?"

Bohn lifts a wildly unamused eyebrow. "I'm Doctor Rattananumchock's _husband_ , yeah. Can you help me figure out how to get this thing on or should I call for someone who's less . . ." He waves a hand in her entire general direction.

The bark of laughter she lets out startles him a little. "You're alright," she says, as if it's a decision she's just made. Bohn can't decide if he was somehow being tested, and scowls. "I can help you," she assures, gesturing at the sling he's been fumbling with. "Stand up. Name's Pancake, by the way."

Bohn barely refrains from telling her that he didn't ask and does as instructed. He's been itching to stretch his legs for awhile, and the sling basically is just swaddling while carrying, so it’s two birds with one stone. He can suffer a weird surly nurse for a few minutes if that's what it takes. She's bizarrely efficient with getting the sling on him, even patient enough to explain how she’s doing it the few times he stops her to ask. In an uncomfortable sort of way, she reminds him of Frong. Blunt, and a little standoffish, but probably a softie underneath the prickly parts. His assumptions are mostly confirmed when she says, "I was the attending nurse in the room when their mae died."

His stomach does a weird sort of roil and flip. She's behind him, adjusting everything as she speaks, tone still gruff despite the subject matter, and Bohn doesn't know how to respond. He's aware of a few details by now, the barest handful he's dared to ask about. She wasn't conscious when she left the world, hadn’t been since the crash. It was probably painless at the end. She was fifteen. She'd been a good girl. He's not sure he wants to know more, but if Pancake offers him info he's also not going to turn it away. Someday, Blue and Dia are going to ask questions, and he wants to be able to give them answers. 

"We were all pretty heartbroken," Pancake continues, obviously oblivious to Bohn’s inner turmoil. "But that other kid in the car with her, she's been really fucked up over it."

Well if Bohn’s stomach wasn't already in knots, it definitely is now. "What?" He croaks out once he's sure he has the breath to. "There was another kid in the car?" No one told him that. Why didn't anyone tell him?

"Yep. A tough little alpha girl, seventeen or so I think," Pancake says.

Just about Bee’s age, Bohn thinks with another sick twist in his gut. "Is she okay?"

"Busted knee, a few broken ribs, but otherwise fine. She's a spitfire, but she's having a hard time." She glances up at him as he turns around to let her adjust the ring on the front that holds it all together, and he knows what she's about to ask of him before she opens her mouth again. "She's been asking to come see you. I've spent most of your stay warning her off. But if you're up for walking around with the squirts, you might peek in on her." She gives the sling one last tug to make sure it's secure, a surprisingly strong one that makes Bohn stumble forwards a little. "Her name's Maimai. Room 223."

It's not really much of a request, or even a suggestion. Really, Bohn reads it as an order, and he frowns as the nurse pads back out of the room with the same no-nonsense efficiency she entered with. And it's not like he _doesn't_ want to go see the kid, especially if she's been asking for him, it's just that he can't really comprehend the point of it. 

At the end of the day, Bohn is just some guy who happens to be adopting her late friend's kids. If she's looking for comfort in her grief, he doesn’t know what he can offer. He didn't know her friend. 

What a grim thought, he thinks as he settles the twins in the sling against his chest. His old one had already looked pretty comical at the best of times. Frong had called it his "Jedi baby wielder," which never made any sense to Bohn, but it was funny regardless. This one, with an infant on each side of his front, sort of just makes him appear like a misshapen gremlin. The babies are so small too that only the fluffy tops of their heads are visible to anyone else, though if Bohn looks down he can see their bleary eyes blinking up at him from confused faces. "We're going for a walk!" He says, to the expected lack of response. "Super exciting, I know. Just pipe up if you want to make any pit stops."

There really isn't much to do while strolling through a hospital, unfortunately. Just long, blindingly white hallways that stink of cleaning products and are punctuated with the sounds of heart monitors here and there. Bohn stops at the actual nursery for awhile, peering in through the glass at the other babies sleeping beyond. It's mostly betas that have their kids in hospitals, not as bound by instincts as omegas. But once, almost thirty years ago now, Ben had been on the other side of that glass, and it has his lip curling still when he thinks about it. More than that though, it just makes him want to go home. He doesn't linger long, only taking a flippant moment to point at one of the nearest bassinets and whisper, "Don't let anyone tell you that bigger is better," to the twins. They blink sleepily at him. "I'm serious. See that chunky little dude? I'm sure he seems cool, but remember; he's in there, and you get to be out here with me. That's way cooler."

Blue yawns. Bohn puts a hand over his heart, or what he can reach of it between them, in mock offense. 

Eventually though he makes it down to the second floor. For awhile he considers skipping it and looping back around later, maybe checking out the cafeteria or the gift shop instead, but after a pensive second he decides that he's better than that. Probably. 

Bohn isn't stupid enough to say that he's not nervous when he reaches room 223, which is exactly why he peeks in first, just a quick glance around the corner of her propped open door before he steps inside fully. She's pretty much exactly what he expected, about Bee’s age but a good handful of centimeters taller. Her hair seems to have recently been cut down to a bob, one side a bit longer than the other, and she's sitting with her back against a huge stack of pillows on her bed, attention focused on a phone with a cracked screen she has in her hands. Bohn’s not as quick as he’d like when he turns away to try and ready himself to meet her properly, because the sudden growl she lets out gives away that she must have seen him. It reminds him of Ben’s early alpha growls, untethered and drawn out by that pure instinct of being caught off guard. 

He whips back around immediately, making sure to show his empty hands as he moves to stand in the doorway. "Ah, sorry," Bohn apologizes smoothly, "I didn’t mean to spook you."

She blinks at him, her pulled back upper lip lowering as her eyes dart down to his chest where the twins are still swaddled. "Oh . . . Oh! You're the doc's-" She falters, glancing at a palm for a second and quietly ticking off fingers. Bohn hears her whisper, "Bee . . . Ben . . . Bohn? P'Bohn!"

How informal, Bohn thinks, amused, he's more than twice her age. But it'll work for now. "And you're Maimai," he returns. "Sounds like you've been talking to my husband a lot, since you know the names of some of my kids, too."

Maimai flushes a little, "My auntie, uh . . . She works a lot at her tech depot, since she's the owner. So she can't be here everyday. The doc visits and plays card games with me most afternoons." She pouts suddenly, lips pursed. "Not this week though. He's busy, so I've been playing with Nok instead. He acts like he’s never seen a deck of cards in his life though, it makes me feel bad about winning." Bohn pulls up one of the chairs in the room to the side of her bed. It’s only then that he really notices that Maimai has one of her legs out of the blankets. It's been heavily casted, seemingly recently by the condition of the plaster, and when she catches him looking she huffs. "I'm getting a new knee. I kinda fucked this one up too much when I tried to strangle Dia's mae."

Bohn swallows, "Ah. I'm guessing you didn't succeed?"

"Dunno," Maimai says cryptically. "I think I helped scare her into signing away her rights to the kids, so I suppose it worked out just fine. She'll die a bitter, old, lonely bitch now, that's karma enough." A sigh escapes her, "Dia was too soft. She'd be so upset if she heard me say that, even if it's true. Her mae didn't fucking deserve her. She always acted like Dia was a disgrace to their family. But she was . . . She was a good girl."

Bohn takes a second to pull himself back together, breathe around the lump that's formed in his throat. "Duen said as much, too."

Maimai's eyes brighten. "Really? Good. Someone should say it. I want the shortstacks to know that." She gestures at the sling, thankfully not reaching to touch. Bohn wonders if someone, probably Duen, already warned her that it's critical that no one else be handling the twins right now other than the two of them. "Speaking of . . ." She holds up the phone she's been fiddling with. "The doc . . . He gave me this. It was Dia's. I was wondering . . ." Her lower lip gets tugged up between her teeth and worried at, but Bohn waits, not wanting to push her. "I know it's not . . . Normal, I guess, for adoptive parents to do it, but if I picked out a few pictures of her . . . Would you guys maybe frame them in the nursery?" As she finishes she tilts the phone screen towards him, just a little, for him to glimpse a snapshot of her and what he assumes is Dia. 

They're both making silly faces at the camera, double peace signs held up in front of them, and at the bottom of the image he can make out the visible swell of Dia's belly. He wonders how long before the crash this was taken. The background is nothing stellar, an overlook from a bridge in town he vaguely recognizes, and the day behind them is cloudy with early summer storms. But they look happy, caught in one cheerful moment despite their circumstances. Bohn’s heart clenches. 

"I'd love to put up pictures of her," he tells Maimai with complete sincerity. 

In many ways it seems like such a paltry compensation. No better than an altar left on a mantle in an out of the way spot in a house. But he’s not agreeing for himself, or even really for her. Blue and Dia can’t talk yet, won’t for quite awhile, and even when they do it’ll be a long time before they have the cognisance with which to ask questions. They will ask them though, someday, and it settles Bohn’s heart just a little to think he’ll be able to point to the pictures already framed in their room and say, with certainty, that the person who had carried them had loved them just as much as he does.

He didn’t know her of course, and now he never will, but as Maimai flips through the images she’s already tentatively chosen he knows he’s right. “These ones,” Maimai explains as she stalls on a set of Dia posing with her hands on her belly, “I made a joke about having a maternity photoshoot, and she took me up on it. I was just _joking_ ,” she laughs. “But Dia was totally serious! Look at her face!”

It’s quite a serious expression, Bohn agrees silently, almost defiant. But there’s a warmth in her eyes, too, one he recognizes with an aching familiarity. Blue starts to fuss a bit in the sling, and Bohn settles an absentminded hand over the top of his head, soothes a thumb over his thin baby curls. 

The mantle isn’t tucked away in some back corner of the house. It’s here. And he’s picked it up.

It’s a weight he’ll carry gladly.

~~~***~~~

To his credit, Duen definitely did his damndest to set up the nursery in the exact way Bohn usually likes it. The mattress they brought from their old apartment, ages ago now, is on the floor strewn with blankets and pillows, and both bedside bassinets have already been tucked up against the mess. For an alpha, Bohn supposes, he did a fairly decent job. Bohn’s still going to rearrange most of it though.

Luckily Duen doesn’t seem too upset by it. If anything, he’s just thrilled when Bohn passes the twins off to him. He wasn’t able to spend much time with them while he was getting things ready, and Bohn can tell he’s missed them by how quickly he takes to laying them out on the playmat in the corner of the room and nuzzling over them. 

He keeps doing that while Bohn pretty much sets about tearing apart and rearranging half the house. Admittedly the instinct definitely isn't as strong as it would be had he been nesting before giving birth, but it's definitely still there, and he’s not about to half-ass it just because the twins aren't his by blood. By the time he’s satisfied with everything it's almost time for Duen to go pick Day and Del up from school. He's still spread out across the playmat, pressed up on one elbow as he lets Dia play with his other hand while Blue dozes at her side. "Do you think they know they're home?" He asks softly when Bohn takes the chance to drape himself over his side and bury his face in the crook of his neck.

"Nah," Bohn hums immediately, lifting his head just enough to settle his chin on Duen’s shoulder. "They don't have object permanence. Every time they wake up they're probably just amazed that the world exists, the setting doesn't really matter." Still, he hopes the fact that they're home now, where everything and everyone around them smells the same, will help kick their instincts into gear a little more. They still have yet to really respond in a way that Bohn would classify as entirely positive. Sure, they cling to him when they're upset, and react to the sort of generic level stimulation that Duen is doing now, but they’ve yet to actually recognize it. Or more precisely, recognize _them_. 

At this point Bohn has figured out the difference between being reached for because he's known, and being clung to simply because he happens to be there. If he has been a comfort to the twins thus far, it is only by proximity. The fact that they still tend to squirm when held too long rather than relax is probably the biggest giveaway of that. 

Which sort of makes introducing them to Day and Del . . . Difficult. 

Bohn hasn't seen his other kids in _a week_ , so he’s quick to basically pounce on them the second Duen shuffles them into the nursery. He noses all over Del until she squeals that she's had enough, and then opens his arms for Day who practically falls into the embrace, the opposite of his sister in his need to be as close as possible to his dad. Bohn’s content to hold him for awhile, soft murmurs shared while Day buries his face in the hollow of his throat. While Del had probably found spending a week with Duen as her stay at home parent exciting, it's not surprising to Bohn that Day basically just toughed it out, put off by such a drastic, if brief, change in routine. 

"Doing okay, cuddly boy?" Bohn whispers into his hair, relieved when Day nods after taking a deep breath. 

At twelve he doesn't sign as much now as he used to, really only falling back on it in times of distress, but Bohn feels his hands clench in the back of his shirt with that old muscle memory before he says, "I missed you."

Bohn pulls back just enough to cup his face and press a kiss to his cheek. "I missed you too. So much."

"I didn’t miss you!" Del declares, as if trying to one up her brother. It's a phase. 

Bohn levels her with an unimpressed stare. "That's too bad. _I_ missed _you_."

It works, and after a moment Del lets out a slightly wet exhale and mutters, "I missed you too," before diving at him to snuggle up under his already half raised arm. "I passed my spelling test!" She adds after a minute, immediately chipper again now that she has some of his attention. "And I helped uncle Frong at the flower shop every day! He says to tell you I'm a much better em . . . _Emplee_ than you."

"It's _employee_ ," Bohn corrects. "And I'm sure you are. Here, when you see your uncle Frong next, tell him this." He holds up his middle finger, ignoring Duen’s squawk of protest when Del nods and dutifully practices repeating it. 

"I got into the district science fair," Day says quietly while Duen tries to get Del to unlearn the important life lesson Bohn just imparted upon her. 

"Did you?" Bohn exclaims, genuinely impressed this time. "Daylily, that's fantastic! What project did you end up going with?"

Day flushes all the way to the tips of his ears the same way Duen tends to. "Uhm, a study on the future of renewable energy. Mostly wind and water powered, focusing on sustainability in the event of economic collapse."

Bohn nods, still amazed despite how grim the subject matter sounds. He's glad Day has definitely found a niche he likes and seems keen on pursuing long term. "You'll have to show me how you plan to amp it up for the district show," he encourages. 

That's probably enough catching up for now, especially because Day is starting to look a bit frazzled by the praise, and Duen is still giving him a pissed side-eye while holding Del's middle finger down. "Anywaaaays," he says quickly, "who wants to meet their new brother and sister?"

Del abandons her adventures in flipping the world off in favor of shouting, "ME!" much too loudly for a nursery setting. 

It unfortunately instigates the exact reaction Bohn expected, as one of the twins follows the exclamation with an absolute caterwaul. Del slaps her hands over her mouth at the same time Duen gently whispers, "Del, luuk, what did we talk about earlier?"

"Being quiet," Del gasps into her palms, eyes wide as Bohn reluctantly untangles himself from Day to move to where the twins are laying in their bassinets on the other side of the mattress. 

It's just Dia that's crying, though Blue's lower lip is quivering dangerously too, and Bohn soothes a hand over his head, his cheek, before he picks his sister up. "It's alright, Del," Bohn assures as he shuffles back over to them on his knees. Dia is cradled in the crook of his elbow, the way she's squirming necessitating that he keep his other hand on her too despite her size. "It's all new stuff for you," he adds when she starts to tear up, too. "Everyone makes mistakes."

"I made you cry all the time," Day mumbles softly, not quite meeting her eyes when Del whips around to stare at him in disbelief.

"Day dropped a book on top of you once when he was trying to read to you," Bohn says while Day sputters and looks thoroughly put off at being reminded of a topic he brought up in the first place. "A pretty big one too, something about Tesla cars."

"Tesla _coils_ ," Day corrects hotly. 

"Those are also cool," Bohn agrees. He'll google what a Tesla coil is later. "Okay, well since Dia's out of commission, anyone want to hold Blue?"

Del looks petrified at the prospect, quickly scooting back a bit when Duen lifts Blue into his arms to bring him over. But Day plasters on an extremely determined expression and stays still, nodding.

Bohn is fucking _delighted_. Day pretty much never held Del when she was this little, mostly because he was much too nervous, terrified of dropping her. But he'd been only six then and still struggling with touch when it came to anyone outside of immediate family (and Sun), and Del had been new and different, so Bohn totally gets why it freaked him out a bit. Now though, he looks like he's really doing his damndest to psych himself up for this. And Bohn is so proud he could cry. 

"Let me know if you change your mind or need me to take him again, okay?" Duen says as he helps Day figure out the right way to position his arms. He lays Blue in them slowly, and the room collectively holds its breath. 

But Blue just blinks up at Day with bleary baby eyes, perplexed but not much else. Day's preemptive wince eases into obvious confusion, his mouth popping open slightly as Blue continues to gaze up at him and drool a little. "Oh. He didn't cry . . ." He leans in a little closer, the slight parting of his lips staying consistent as he draws in a steady, long inhale. "He . . . Smells like me."

Bohn grins, remembering with fond clarity despite the years how Ben had said the same thing about Bee the first time they'd met, too. "He better," he remarks as he pats Dia's back while she sniffles against his shoulder. "I've spent a week scenting these two meticulously."

Day nods but doesn’t really pay him any more mind than that. He seems to be having a staring contest with Blue, who's wound one fist into the front of his shirt and stuffed the other one into his mouth, so Bohn figures he can leave them be for awhile to get acquainted. 

"Del," he cajoles, settling Dia against his chest now that she's calmed down significantly. "Come here. You don't have to hold her," he clarifies when Del just levels him with a grimace before she shuffles his way. 

Dia is still teary-eyed and a little hiccuppy, but Bohn smoothes away the worst of it with a thumb over her cheeks while Del tucks up against his side. "Was I this little?" She whispers after a heartbeat. 

"No," Bohn returns easily. "You were by far my biggest baby, chubby all the way around." And an absolute nightmare of almost seventy hours of labor, the real solidifying factor in Bohn’s decision to only have four biological children. But she doesn't need to know that. "Dia is much, much smaller than you," he explains when Del starts to lift a tentative hand towards her new sibling. "You have to be really careful with her, okay? Gentle touches only."

Del hums a soft affirmative as she lets her fingers trace over Dia's knuckles. "Does she like princesses?"

"I don't know," Bohn laughs. "She doesn't talk yet. Maybe if you watch some princess movies with her though she might." Then again Bee never took to that stuff, mostly due to Ben and Bohn’s influences. 

Bohn really wishes she was here, too. But they’ve decided not to bother her with the news for a few more weeks, after the twins have settled in a bit better. She's in her first semester at university after all.

Also Bohn’s kinda keen on springing both these new additions to the family on his unsuspecting eldest children with zero lead in. He's forty-two, he has to get his kicks somehow.

~~~***~~~

After another week, Bohn finally feels like he's definitely getting somewhere. The reason isn't, uh, particularly great, but he'll take his scraps of progress where he can get them.

In this case, progress meaning the fact that Dia and Blue have started shrieking bloody fucking murder if he leaves a room without them. The sling becomes a pretty permanent part of his body, mostly out of necessity, and he starts wondering if there might be such a thing as _too much_ skin to skin, because sometimes shoving them in there and up against his chest is the only way to get them to settle down. Still, he counts this as a sign that they're starting to actually become honestly, actually attached, which is a good thing, even if Duen tells him that the first steps of it like this are going to come across as separation anxiety. 

Whatever. He can deal with anxious babies and chaffing from the sling constantly being on. Although part of the latter is significantly relieved after Duen covers his shoulders in lotion and big gauze strips and hedges that it might be easier on him if he has less layers of fabric to worry at his skin.

"You just want me to walk around shirtless," Bohn grins. 

Duen rolls his eyes and takes the kids to school. 

So it is that when Bohn hears the front door open again just a few minutes later, he's half naked with two infants strapped and sleeping to his chest. His hackles are up immediately from where he's been fiddling with his phone in the nursery, and he evens his breathing into a slow, low tenor as he strains his senses to figure out who just walked into his god damn house. 

It's quiet, the only sounds he picks up on the steady pad of footsteps. Whoever it is took off their shoes, he notes; at least they're polite. Still, they're too far away for him to pick up a scent, and Bohn pushes himself into a crouch in case he needs to run for the nursery door and lock it. 

"No, no, Phorh's at work by now. Dad's probably got Day and Del halfway to school, and then he usually has a shift with uncle Frong on Thursdays."

Bohn lets out the breath he was holding. For fuck’s sake. It's Ben. What the hell is he doing sneaking into the house so early in the morning, clearly expecting both his parents to be out?

Whatever. If he's trying to surprise them for some reason, Bohn is going to surprise _him_ instead. Serves him right. 

He stands, hands on his hips, ready to announce his presence when the door to the nursery starts to squeak open. "Should we set it up in the living room? Or would the old nursery be better? They moved stuff around again after Bee moved out, so it should be basically empty," Ben says. He has his head craned over his shoulder as he eases against the door, talking to someone, and doesn't turn to face the room until he starts speaking again. "I mean symbolically, putting the banner in here would-" He freezes as his gaze finally takes in the room, and Bohn. Bohn holds his stance, chest puffed despite how Blue is starting to wake up from the noise and fuss a bit. Ben makes dead eye contact with him, slack-jawed and startled, before darting it down to spot the twins nestled in their sling. "Uuuuuhhh . . . Anna! Anna, get back in the car! Dad finally lost it and stole a couple of babies!"

"Hey!" Bohn snaps, charging at him as Ben books it back out of the room as if he really means to flee the scene of whatever felony he thinks his dad has committed. 

Anna is in the living room, arms laden with what looks like a banner and a bunch of craft paper and packages of balloons. She wisely gives them a wide berth as Ben vaults past her and unnecessarily over the back of the sofa closest to the kitchen. "Look. Look!" He gestures at Bohn as he passes her. "Contraband kids!"

"They're not contraband, they're _mine_!" Bohn growls. He barely misses snagging the back of Ben’s shirt as he loops back around the room and ducks behind his nonplussed looking wife to hide. "Why are you making your old man chase you anyways? Who taught you to be such a hellion?"

"You," Ben and Anna chime simultaneously. 

Bohn skids to a halt in front of them, hands on his hips again. "You're such an ungrateful brat. Here I am, trying to surprise you and you accuse me of a _crime_."

Ben eyes him over Anna’s shoulder. "You weren't pregnant."

"Thank you, Detective Conan. This is truly what you got your two degrees for."

"I refuse to be an accessory to your kidnapping," Ben huffs.

Anna, finally getting fed up with the charade, levels them both with a very unimpressed look. "Which of you _adults_ is going to take all this crap out of my arms so I can hold one of the babies."

Bohn points at Ben, who sighs and rolls his eyes but does as he's told. He's quick about it too, depositing everything his wife was holding on the kitchen counter to practically bound back to their sides a second later. "Me too," he demands. "I want to hold the illegal infants." He makes grabby hands at him, and Bohn rolls his eyes.

"They're not illegal, or stolen," he adds when Ben makes to open his mouth to give him yet another sassy retort, Bohn’s sure. "They were an anniversary gift," he smirks.

Ben gapes at him even as Bohn deftly deposits Dia into his waiting arms. "Phorh did _not_ give you two babies as a fucking _anniversary gift_."

"He did," Bohn boasts as he passes Blue to Anna, who immediately starts to coo over him. "He totally forgot our anniversary and I sulked about it for a month, so he brought me two new kids. Score."

Ben frowns but is quickly distracted as Dia burbles at him, curious as he casts his gaze down to her. "So they're like . . . Adopted, right?" He asks after a hesitant moment of letting her grab onto his thumb. 

"Paperwork pending, yeah. Should be signed and sealed in the next few days though, we just had our last home inspection on Tuesday," Bohn confirms. "This one," he points to Dia, "is Dia. And the other one is Blue."

"Blue is such a sweety!" Anna purrs, cupping a hand over one of his chubby cheeks while Blue just stares at her. 

Meanwhile, Dia has moved on to trying to gum at Ben’s thumb. "You can't do that," Ben scolds even as he continues to let her do it. "That's cannibalism." He glances over at Bohn as he speaks, smiling for a minute before he lifts an eyebrow. "So, what, I move out for a decade and now I don't get to be let in on the big news anymore?"

Bohn shrugs, "Nah. Duen wanted to call you immediately but I told him not to. I thought it would be way funnier if it was a surprise. Bee doesn't know yet either." He puts a hand over his heart and backs up towards the sofa and flops over it dramatically. "Anyways! Why the hell should I have called you? You haven't visited me in _two months_!"

Ben sighs, "I told you he was gonna bitch about that."

"Tough," Anna says absentmindedly, still enamored with Blue. 

Sitting up, Bohn snaps, "Of course I'm going to bitch about it! You're my kid! I _missed you_ , you asshole!"

Ben's expression softens significantly, "Yeah, I know. I missed you too. But we kinda wanted to lay low for a bit until we were sure . . ."

Bohn narrows his eyes, glancing between them. Suspicion clouds his brain for a second, and his nostrils flare as he takes a deeper breath. _No way_. "Sure of what?" He asks anyways, just to be certain even though he's positive he's not mistaken. It's less obvious with betas, less potent, enough so that he didn't notice it at first, but Bohn knows that smell regardless.

Ben grins, eyes sparkling as he continues to let Dia gnaw on his fingers. "It's gonna be kinda weird when your youngest kids and your oldest grandkid are in the same grade, huh."

It's a good thing he's not holding either of the twins, Bohn thinks, because the speed at which he gets dizzy off the heels of that announcement has him falling back over onto the sofa again. "Bwuh," he manages to eek out. "Buh . . . _Ben_? **_Really_**?"

His son looks _so happy_ , dazzlingly so as he continues to smile at him. "Yeah. Really. Are you excited?"

"I feel _old_ ," Bohn says, and Ben guffaws. He looks to Anna, "How far along are you? You're not showing."

"Three months almost exactly," Anna says eagerly. "We were trying to surprise _you_ , you know. But I think our still developing baby news got kinda shown up by you appearing with two entirely new babies."

Bohn holds his arms out, "If I can't best my own son at everything, what kind of dad am I?"

"I think you're supposed to let your twenty-eight year old son have the spotlight when he announces he's having a kid," Ben deadpans.

"Absolutely not. Also, _Anna_ is having a kid," Bohn corrects while Anna nods in agreement. "You're just the guy who gives her backrubs and lets her break all your fingers during labor." 

Ben grimaces. "Thanks," he drolls, "these are definitely the super helpful tips I came here to get."

Waving a hand at him, Bohn says, "That's what Duen’s around for. I'm here to give you the honest truth."

"I want less of that," Ben complains. "When is Phorh coming home anyways? Is he off work for paternity leave?"

Bohn nods. "He's just dropping Day and Del off at school and then swinging by the grocery store. He'll probably be back within the hour. Why?"

"Well," Ben hums, "if we're quick we can probably still set up the banner and at least surprise one of you."

"I was surprised," Bohn complains while Ben hands Dia back to him. He passes her over to Anna, who's moved to sit on the sofa with Blue cradled in one arm. "Here, practice. I was!" He insists. 

"You one-upped me," Ben says flatly. "With double the babies."

"You just have bad timing," Bohn sniffs.

"Excuse me? I'm sorry, are _you_ trying to imply _I_ have bad timing in having children?"

Bohn flicks him right on the nose, smirking when Ben sputters in surprise and stumbles half a step back. "Sass. How dare you," he huffs. "I had perfect timing with all my kids." Ben arches a brow. "If I hadn't had any of you exactly when I did, I'd have a totally different set of children. And I like the ones I got just fine."

"'Just fine,'" Ben echoes, nonplussed.

Bohn rolls his eyes and takes his face between his hands. "I love you," he states, joking set aside for a heartbeat as he waits for Ben to meet his eyes. "You're the light of my fucking life, that's how much I adore you." He punctuates it with a kiss to Ben’s cheek that his son responds to with whine of protest. "Now quit being a turd and help me hang up this banner so we can give Duen a heart attack."

"Boys," Anna mutters from the sofa.

Duen doesn't have a heart attack, thankfully, but he does almost drop all the groceries he's carrying and sway on his feet a little. Bohn scrambles to take the bags from his hands just in time for Duen to simply flat out burst into tears.

Ben is instantly frazzled, clearly not quite expecting that reaction, and he’s stiff as a board when Duen surges in to hug him. "Did you expect applause or something?" Bohn asks between laughs as he drinks in his flabbergasted expression.

"I don't know what I expected anymore," Ben admits weakly as he pats Duen’s back. 

"My _baby_ is having a baby," Duen sobs, sounding half elated and half totally horrified.

Well, Bohn figures, at least they're in the same boat feelings-wise.

"Grandparents at forty," Bohn sighs in agreement. "Kids these days."

"I'm twice the age you were," Ben points out with a smirk. Bohn joins the hug just to flick him on the nose again. 

~~~***~~~

Bohn is used to spending half his nights awake. Hell, he probably has only slept all the way through a couple dozen of them since he was fourteen. At this point it's just an expected part of his life. 

Dia's the one who starts fussing first, but Bohn loads them both into the sling anyways before he wanders out into the kitchen to start heating up water for formula. Duen is still dead to the world in the nursery nest, and Bohn doesn't see the need to wake him when at least one of them should be getting some rest. So yeah, stumbling around the house well past midnight is basically on par with everything else. What isn't is stepping into the kitchen to find his entire countertop covered in neat lines of cupcakes.

Bohn eyes them for a second, tallying in his head before he twists his tired gaze to the side to see Ben standing by the stove, apron clad and lightly dusted with flour. "Why are there forty-eight cupcakes in here?" He asks. "At two in the morning?"

Ben gives him a wobbly, sheepish smile. "Ah, sorry . . . Couldn't sleep."

"I can see that," Bohn mumbles.

He shoulders past him to fumble for the box of formula, free hand left to soothe over Dia's back through the sling as she hiccups on an upset gurgle. Blue is still knocked out against the other side of his chest. It’s not really a surprise for him to see Ben there, he and Anna had spent the night after all, eager to catch up with Bohn and Duen after their time apart. But he is a little alarmed to find him in his kitchen at this time of night, well into some sort of feverish baking breakdown. Ben is quiet while Bohn prepares the formula, merely moving aside to frost another dozen cupcakes he pulls out of the oven after a few minutes.

He never was the sort of kid Bohn could push to talk to him. In truth, he worries that that's his fault; maybe, in the end, they just weren't close enough. But sometimes if he waits for awhile Ben will start talking anyways. That's what he hopes for now as silence settles into the eaves of the house around them. It's not like he didn't notice that Ben was a bit testy today, his comments a tad more barbed than they might normally be, but Bohn’s not an idiot. Really, it probably has nothing to do with him at all.

Ben might be twenty-eight, but Bohn’s familiar enough by now with fear to read it easily in his own son's gaze regardless of age. 

He's settled on the sofa before Ben finally speaks, Blue still sleeping in the sling and Dia tucked and nursing on her bottle in his arms. 

"You're really good at this," Ben starts, and Bohn can't help but choke on a laugh.

"Luuk," he says, "of course I am. I've had a lot of practice."

Ben nods, but the way he sort of just slumps, falls into the cushions at Bohn’s side dashes that quiet bravado in an instant. 

"I don't . . . What if I'm not good at it?" Ben whispers.

Bohn turns a little where he sits, just enough so that he can see Ben better in the shadows of the living room. "Thought you didn't want my advice," he teases.

"Dad . . ."

He shifts to balance Dia better in the crook of his arm so he can briefly let go of her bottle in favor of running a hand through Ben’s hair. "Luuk," he says again. "You want the truth? You won't be good at it." He ignores the way Ben sucks in a sharp breath and tilts Dia's bottle back towards her as she starts to squirm. "Sure, some of it is instinct, but we're not hardwired to know _everything_. It's going to be a learning curve, a steep one," he admits. "And I don't want you sitting here thinking that I'm some kind of . . . Of veteran parent. I was scared shitless with every single one of you guys."

Ben stills beside him. He’s been jittery, leg bouncing and hands clenched in his lap, but he holds his breath for a heartbeat as Bohn says that. ". . . Even right now?" He whispers hoarsely, glancing at the baby cradled in his arms, the other strapped to his chest.

"Mm," Bohn confirms. "I'm scared they still don't understand that I love them, that anything they want or need I'll give them, that that's my _job_ , one I do gladly and willingly. But that's a different kind of fear than with the rest of you. I'm constantly afraid of doing something irreparable by accident, a wrong word, a bad decision. I'm only human. I've fucked up before, probably going to continue to do so."

Ben stays quiet, so Bohn continues.

"If you want specifics: I was scared Del wouldn't make it, that I'd do something wrong before she was even born. With Day, I'm terrified that he doesn't tell me everything; that maybe he's still being bullied, or getting overwhelmed with school, but how would I know if he doesn't say? I . . . I got Bee sick, when she was two," he murmurs, "with carelessness. And even though she barely even catches a cold now, I think about that a lot. The idea that she could be that sick again as an adult leaves me paralyzed. And with you . . . I made _so many_ mistakes with you. I wasn't ready. I didn't know how to be. And for years I convinced myself I would be fine if you never loved me, but if it had turned out that way, it probably would have killed me," he chuckles. 

He thinks about that a lot, too, especially when Ben is away for awhile. He has his own life now, his own growing family. Maybe, in the end, the love he had for Bohn was born out of necessity and nothing else. He fears that it's faded with time apart. 

But when he glances his way again, Ben just looks . . . Well, stricken is probably the best word for it. "I . . . Do you think about all that stuff all the time?" He manages to ask. Bohn shrugs. "Fuck."

"I'm not saying this to freak you out," Bohn says. "I just want you to know there's no pinnacle to reach. Being a parent doesn't come with some eventual moment of enlightenment. You're going to be scared, and nervous, and you're probably going to fuck up a few times too. But that's _normal_."

"Is it?" Ben whispers weakly.

"As long as you're always trying to make sure your kid is happy and healthy, you'll be fine," Bohn says. "You're allowed to make mistakes. For the most part, I like to think all of mine didn't fuck any of you up too badly."

". . . I don't remember living with the Sirikarnkuls very much," Ben says suddenly. Bohn almost drops Dia he's so startled by it, sitting up straighter as it sinks in what his son is saying. "I must have been . . . Six? When I started living with you for most of the week? But I don't remember. I just remember you. You smelled like me. You . . . You _loved_ me. And I knew that. That's . . . That's what I want for my kid." Bohn blinks, uncomprehending. "If I do make mistakes, I want them to be like that. I want my kid to only remember the best parts of their life."

Bohn’s vision blurs, and he chokes on a raw, unexpected sound when he first tries to respond. "H-hey. I'm supposed to be giving _you_ the pep talk."

"You are," Ben laughs. "I feel a lot better."

"That's because I apparently gave you brain damage when I dropped you once or twice!"

"You didn't drop me."

"I might have! You don't remember!"

Ben laughs at him again, tactfully overlooking the moment Bohn takes to scrub at his eyes. "I remember that I loved you, too," he adds after a pause. 

" _Stop_ ," Bohn protests, "I'm trying to _not_ cry." He gets ahold of himself after a second though, mostly because Dia makes an angry little, " _bah!_ " sound when he accidentally pulls the nipple of the bottle out of her mouth. "Sorry, sweetie," he soothes quickly before he turns to Ben again, "See? Mistakes."

"A tiny one," Ben points out.

Bohn hums in agreement. "Still," he says. "I think, whatever mistakes you do make, big or small, you'll be a great dad, Ben."

"That's what Anna said," Ben mutters.

"You should listen to her. She's a smart girl."

"Yeah . . . I did, uh . . . I did want to hear it from you too, though."

It warms Bohn’s heart to hear that just as much as it totally bewilders him. "Huh?"

Ben clears his throat a bit, "I mean, with Anna and I it's all just hypotheticals. We're both new at this. So our reassurances to each other are just . . . Assumptions. But you're," he gestures to the twins, to the house around them. "I wanted to hear it from you. I had a good childhood, so having the person who made sure I had that say it . . . That means a little more to me, I guess."

Bohn flushes and looks away, "All I ever did was my best," he mumbles.

"Yeah," Ben agrees easily. "But that's what I want to do, too. My best. And if you think that's enough, that I'll be good at it, then that makes me feel a lot better."

Bohn stares at him for a long, stunned moment before he whispers, just a little rueful, "Who made you such a sap?"

"You," Ben chuckles.

~~~***~~~

Bee barges into the house at the crack of dawn, a t-shirt clutched in a hand held over her head. "Where's Ben!?" she demands, eyes skimming over where Bohn is already spread out on the playmat in the living room with the twins. "And why the fuck did he send me a shirt in the mail that says 'World's Best Auntie' on it!?" She pauses as it finally hits her what she's just seen, and she freezes when Bohn sits up and balances Blue on a forearm and waves one of his chubby little arms at her. "Oh my god," she croaks, horrified. " _You too_!? I'm gone for a semester and you _steal babies_!?"

Bohn puffs out a sigh. "Why does everyone always jump to the conclusion that I stole them?"

"Maybe you look like a guy who steals babies," Duen yawns as he stumbles out from the hall. "Hey, bumble-Bee. Your brother's in the master bedroom if you want to see him."

"I'm gonna throw this shirt in his face," Bee declares. "Nicely," she adds when Duen levels her with an unimpressed look. "In a sisterly manner."

From the noise Ben makes a few doors down a second later, it sounds more like Bee tackled him right off the mattress. 

~~~***~~~

Bohn knows something is amiss almost immediately. Age never did smooth out Duen’s poor habit of turning into a total suck up whenever he wants something, and Bohn has spent the better part of twenty years letting him think that's the reason he gets his way so often, so he’s certainly not going to stop now. Besides, the attention is nice. He's tired, exhausted really if he's honest, and Duen fawning over him is a burden he'll happily shoulder. 

There's a pattern to it, too. It always starts with little things; an extra kiss here and there, a few more minutes of nuzzling in the morning until Bohn is purring from the stimulation of being scented, or a rose brought home and placed in a vase on the counter. But if Bohn pretends not to notice, only preens under the affection, the small stuff turns into more. 

And it's not that they don’t normally do things like this, it's just a little more sporadic, less spontaneous. They have six kids, for fuck’s sake, intimacy is more often planned than not. So if Duen wants something, Bohn is all too keen to play coy about it for as long as possible, just to bask in the surplus of stolen moments it brings. It helps too that they're both on paternity leave still, and that the twins are starting to sleep for more than just an hour or two at once, especially in the afternoons and evenings. Rare spots where they can spend time with just each other are precious, and while Duen is preoccupied with trying to satiate him into whatever state he thinks is the best mood for asking favors, Bohn is going to _eat that shit_ **_up_**. 

Normally, baby naptime also tends to be parent naptime, but Bohn’s not going to complain when Duen rouses him from his doze with a press of teeth to the base of his neck. He’s not sure how long he was asleep for, whether it was a few minutes or a few hours, he feels rested enough though. And when he glances to the side for the twins he's startled for a heartbeat to see that their bassinets are absent from the room. He must tense up, because in the next second Duen has pulled him a fraction closer to say against the curve of his throat, "They're in the nursery, monitor's on the nightstand. You slept through feeding time, phi. Thought you could use the rest."

Bohn relaxes again, his purr renewing to a steady thrum in his chest. "This isn't resting," he teases as Duen nips at his ear. 

"Hmm," Duen muses. "I mean, I guess I can stop . . ."

Duen has the special skill of being a total asshole when he wants to be, even though it's mostly done in jest. And as much as Bohn might usually let him get away with it, even knowing the twins are probably passed out full of formula is not enough for him to overlook that they could wake up at any moment. He casts the monitor a glance, staring at the feed of them sleeping before he rolls over in Duen’s grip and cups his face between his hands. "You better not stop," he goads, delighted by the ember-bright spark that lights in Duen’s gaze. 

He loves this more than he can stand. The sight of Duen settling above him, the weight of his body against his pressing him back into the mattress, the heat of shared breaths exhaled between them before he surges in to kiss him; it's never gotten old. It's a shame, really, that they had to use cycle suppressants the week prior, the natural delay not triggered the way it would have been if the twins had been theirs by blood. They only have so many heats and ruts left, Bohn laments, maybe another two or three years of them before they'll fade away entirely. He wonders sometimes if he'll miss them, ache for the carnal, uncontrollable desire that they spurr on, or if by then the waning will be a relief. They're already shorter, five days cut down to average out into only a little under seventy-two hours at most, but he knows his body wouldn't be able to keep up with more the way it did when he was in his twenties. 

If he does miss them, he figures it will simply be with fond regard. In the end, he hopes their lives are long, the experience of the cycle and that frenzied need to breed and be bred just a portion of it. Truthfully, Bohn has never feared getting old so long as it's not something he does alone. There's a lot to be said for that especially, the seconds and minutes passed just like this, unhurried and undriven by instinct. He's always enjoyed it best when Duen makes love to him just because he wants to, intrinsic need replaced with the simplicity of wanting to be together. 

As usual, Duen’s scenting is slow, attentive. It doesn't matter what age they are, he's never passed up an opportunity to make sure Bohn, and the world, know he's claimed. Bohn basks in the glow of it, so easily satiated after so long together that he knows it's probably embarrassing. He's putty in Duen’s hands, malleable in every atom as Duen divests him of his shirt, his shorts, roving hands putting pressure in all the right places to make Bohn as pliant as possible beneath him. "You've been doing so good, phi," he praises as Bohn tilts his head to the side to give him better access to his neck. The press of teeth is back, teasing but not taking more. If Bohn were more with it he'd be squirming to be bitten by now, but Duen knows what he's doing. He has Bohn right where he wants him, blissed out and silently needy. "I knew you would," Duen continues softly, lips forming the words against his skin as he trails kisses down to Bohn’s collar bones. "The second I saw them in the NICU, I knew I wanted to bring them home to you. I knew they were perfect, that _you_ were perfect. I know it's tough," Duen murmurs over his sternum. "But you've done _so well_."

Bohn’s always been a sucker for flattery, for encouragement, so it’s no surprise to either of them that he practically melts as Duen noses his way back up his body. "You think?" He whispers. From his perspective the progress has been so slow, he worries that it's not enough. But if Duen says he's doing a good job . . . Well, he's the doctor, right? He'd know. And it's not like Bohn has been doing it alone, Duen is there most of the time, too. 

He relaxes, just a little more, loose in the embrace even as Duen holds him tighter, leaves his assurances to Bohn’s insecurities in marks petaled across his skin. "I'm so glad," Duen purrs near his ear, "that I got to have you like this one more time "

"What do you mean?"

"Phi," Duen nuzzles across his cheek, his throat, face buried near his scent glands for a moment as he inhales. "I'm glad I got to have another baby with you."

Oh. 

_Oh_.

"I love how much joy it brings you," Duen continues, correctly reading Bohn’s sharp breath as positive. "And I know you wanted more, after Del, even though we agreed we had to stop. I'm so . . . I'm so _happy_ I was able to give that to you after all."

The cadence with which he says it hitches tellingly, giving away just how much he truly means that. And it's not like Bohn didn't know, of course he did. The decision had _hurt_ , had been hard on both of them, but it's a comfort to hear that reflected back at him now. 

It makes the difficulties thus far, the discouragement, worth it all the more. The twins are something they've both wanted desperately, and he’s so, so gratified knowing they have them now. 

Although apparently there's something else Duen wants now, too, something he's trying to seduce Bohn into giving with affection and accolades. And Bohn isn't going to bend to whatever those whims are until he gets what _he_ needs first.

"You're wasting a lot of time," he goads, grinning as Duen chides the remark with a light bite to the line of his jaw. He squirms in the wake of it, snickering as he manages to loosen Duen’s hold on him enough to flip over onto his stomach. Sometimes, teasing his husband is almost too easy, as Duen’s breath catches audibly the second he does it, the hands he was using to keep Bohn is his grasp quickly shifting to frame his hips. 

"Fuck, Bohn," he says, hushed and awed as if this isn't the millionth time they've done this.

Bohn purrs an affirmative as he feels tentative fingers trace over his core, dip inside until his sigh turns into a whine as they glide in knuckle deep. Heat ripples through him for a breathless second, arching his back as his hands scrabble at the sheets for purchase. He wants more but doesn’t voice the plea that bubbles in his throat because he’s sure Duen already knows that. His body is too responsive for him not to, what with the way he adjusts to get his knees under him. Sometimes, he wonders what Duen sees when they’re like this together, whether he reads Bohn’s neediness as generic or focused. Does he know that this is all for him? That it always has been? Sure, Bohn had had other partners before Duen, mostly quick flings after his disastrous first heat, but he was never like this for any of them. He didn’t trust them.

It’s all for Duen; the vulnerability, the submissiveness, the insatiable want, that belongs to him alone.

And _god_ does he want. Thirteen years of marriage has done nothing to stifle his sex drive, and neither has his age. He wants. He needs. He aches to be taken with that same, unquenchable desire that had overcome him during that first heat they’d spent together. 

He must let out some sort of noise that makes that all too obvious, some muffled whimper or moan, because after a moment Duen’s attention snaps away from where he was lazily fingering him to tug Bohn closer to his body. “You want me, phi?” he asks, light despite how the words lilt into a knowing growl. Bohn decides not to deign that with a response, at least not a verbal one. Of course he wants him, Bohn’s pretty sure he’s wanted Duen longer than he’s known him, the stretch of a red thread merely dragging him along through life until they’d met. “You want me inside you?” Duen prods, both metaphorically and _physically_. Bohn can feel the hot length of his cock brushing over his center, tantalizing, and he chokes on a mewl that’s probably much more of a telling answer that any words could ever be. In theory, he could just wiggle back a little and probably obtain what he wants for himself, but it’s always more satisfying to let Duen do it.

He groans when Duen splays a hand across his back, palm fitting perfectly into the space between his shoulder blades as he pins him. A shiver makes its way up his spine as he’s entered slowly, sharp and soft gasps escaping him as he’s filled one languid centimeter at a time. His hands fist at the sheets for a moment when he feels Duen bottom out, fingers flexing in time with his panting. Really, it astounds him sometimes how much this still overwhelms him when he lets it, the flare of heat, the weight of the connection, the mixture of sensations that makes him groan and clench around his partner until Duen hisses out a warning against his skin for him to settle before he works him too close to the edge just from the reactions of his body alone.

Bohn’s always been the type to babble during sex, strung out and electrified nerves sparking into words. It’s not always sensical, let alone well thought out, but he knows Duen enjoys it regardless. “Th-there, right- _ah!_ \- right there, baby. That’s perf- _fuck_ \- perfect.” This really is his favorite, that just right rhythm that borders on too much and not quite enough in waves until his thoughts are fuzzy at the edges and his breath hitches between pleasured purrs and wanton whines. “Baby,” he urges, choking on the syllables as he rocks back to meet Duen on the next thrust, the one after, spurred on by that increasing thrum of white-hot heat in his gut as it coils tighter and tighter. “Baby, baby, _baby_ . . .”

Duen’s teeth are at his neck again, scraping over skin as he breathes before he finally sinks them into the flesh properly. The initial sting of it always makes Bohn dizzy, sends a tingling shiver through his entire frame. He gasps through it, kneading at the sheets until one of Duen’s hands soothes over his knuckles. The scent of him is everywhere after that, it always is, mulled in the air and over his body so harshly his head spins with it. Bohn comes just like that, brought to the brink with the simultaneous sensations of being surrounded, filled, panting on his partner’s name as he shudders to pieces. “D- _Duen_. _Duen!_ Fu- _fuck_!”

“I’ve got you,” Duen murmurs over his shoulder, kisses scattered along his skin as Bohn shakes and squeezes around him in wakes. “I’ve got you phi.”

He can feel the pressure of the knot through the aftershocks, whimpering with the sudden flare of need to have it in him. It’s been just long enough since they’ve had time for this that his every nerve is shattered, buzzing off the heels of the orgasm in a way he knows means he could probably chase another in quick succession. That empty ache is rising with every second Duen doesn’t knot him, and he scrambles to press back against it, spread his legs a little wider for him to let him know how badly he wants it while his brain is still jumbled with afterglow. Luckily, they know each other well, and the answer he gets is a growl rumbled over his spine, a tightening grip. The actual knotting is as intense as it always is, that delicious and fervent shallow press and jerk as Duen works the swell of it inside him, grinds it as it bulges further until it sticks. Bohn groans when it does, face hidden against a forearm as he feels Duen twitch and spill inside him. His arms have wound around Bohn’s middle, the weight of him bearing them down towards the mattress as he strings out a series of swears punctuated with Bohn’s name. 

In hindsight it’s always funny how much Duen curses when he comes, but Bohn never has it in him to laugh in the moment. He’s overstimulated, flushed and sensitive, his mind zeroed in on the goal. He gets a hand under them to fit his fingers over Duen’s, guide them down with a wavering, “ _Please_ ,” that’s more than enough encouragement to get him what he wants. Duen is well above adept, has had Bohn wrapped around him far too often over the years not to know what to do for him with expert ease. Although, really, it doesn’t take much, and after no more than a minute he has Bohn whimpering along the telling, high notes of the edge of ecstasy. He’s too loud, he knows, the noise that rips out of him practically a wail before Duen quickly slaps his other hand over his mouth to stifle it. It’s too much, it’s never enough, the rise of heat that envelops him from bottom to top in one long, shuddering rush making him tense, clench, relax, and then do it all over again. It’s a lot for Duen too, he can tell, the way he sinks his teeth into his shoulder with a groan giving that away in an instant while Bohn’s vision blackens for a heartbeat before it fades back in.

“S’good,” he gasps when he has the wherewithal to. “So good, baby. You’re so good to me. _So good_.”

Duen hums his reply, a kiss left to the curve of Bohn’s throat before he speaks. “You say that like you didn’t do any work.”

“I didn’t,” Bohn laughs. “You know I didn’t. I’m such a pillow prince, you know that. You’re the one that spoils me.”

“You do enough,” Duen assures, wicked amusement in every syllable. “You drive me nuts with just the little things. Calling me baby,” his arms tighten around him a little more, “being so wet for me just from the tiniest bit of foreplay-”

“Don’t,” Bohn warns, “dirty talk me while we’re still knotted, or I’ll want to go again, and I know you won’t be able to.”

“Just because my refractory period isn’t stellar anymore doesn’t mean we can’t go again,” Duen murmurs, the words ghosting over the shell of Bohn’s ear. “I could eat you out while my cum is still inside you.”

“Fucking _hell_.”

Well, at the very least Duen knows how to keep their sex lives exciting. By the time they’re finished though, Bohn collapsed back into the pillows with his arms covering his face while Duen smirks up at him between his legs, mouth still distractingly wet and smug, he’s almost forgotten why they got started in the first place. Once he does though he relents; whatever Duen’s after he’s definitely earned it.

Bohn waits till they’re a little more put together to ask him though, the sheets changed and the twins checked on before he says, “So, what’s the special occasion?”

Duen rolls his eyes from where he’s pillowed his head on Bohn’s chest. “There doesn’t have to be a special occasion for me to make love to you, Bohn.”

“No,” Bohn agrees, “but the lead up to it was a good couple of days of you spoiling me even more than usual, which means you want something.” He grins at the tinge of pink that rises in Duen’s cheeks, the way he twists his whole body to bury his face at his chest properly to hide it. “It’s alright,” Bohn soothes, a hand in his hair as he tries not to laugh too much. “I don’t mind, obviously. I just want you to tell me what’s up.”

He’s quiet for awhile, probably trying to parse out the best way to word what he wants. And while Bohn has a few ideas of what it could be, it’s still entirely unexpected when Duen says, “I want Maimai to stay with us for a little while.”

Bohn blinks. “. . . Maimai . . . Dia’s friend? The one I met in the hospital?”

Duen’s tense in every line of his body, even as he nods. “Yeah. She’s done with her last surgery at the end of the week, and her aunt is still in the process of moving to a bigger place to accommodate her. She could stay in the hospital for another few weeks until that’s squared away, or . . .”

“Or she could come here,” Bohn fills in. It’s not totally unfeasible, he thinks. He’s done nesting, another alpha in the territory, even a non-blood related one won’t bother him, and they’d already discussed turning Duen’s office into a guest room for the eventuality of Ben and Anna staying over now and then after the baby is born. “Would she want that, though?” he asks after a moment. They’re not family, and Maimai is a still developing alpha, prone to pride over logic, and Bohn would hate for her to be uncomfortable. 

“I don’t know,” Duen admits. “I didn’t want to ask her until you said it was okay.”

Bohn thinks back to what he remembers of their brief meeting with a considering hum. As much as she’d called Dia a kid, referred to her as “a little thing,” Maimai is still a child herself, not much bigger altogether than her friend had been. She’d been boastful, but ultimately quiet, her eyes hollow behind her smiles. Bohn knows a few other things, too, stuff Duen told him after; an old fashioned home life, a rough view of herself, a history of the sorts of things wayward kids use to cope. As much as he knows Duen saw something of him in the memory of Dia, Bohn finds his own reflection more in Maimai, a lump in his throat as he thinks of the roads he could have gone down had things been just a little bit worse when he was her age. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “She can stay here as long as she needs to.”

~~~***~~~

For the first few days Maimai sticks to the edges of the house, the peripheries of sight. Bohn watches her out of the corners of his eyes whenever she thinks he doesn’t see her, waiting patiently for her to realize she’s a guest and not a ghost. It doesn’t help that her attempts at sneaking are really lackluster, what with how she’s still limping post surgery, but he doesn’t point it out. He has some tact, after all.

For the most part they just carry on as usual. Duen’s preparing to go back to work in a couple of weeks, so he’s soaking up as much of the rest of his paternity leave with all four kids as he can. Maimai sometimes joins them in the living room when they’re playing with the twins, but she never asks to hold them, or touch them herself. And when Day and Del come home she gets even more skittish, usually retreating to her room entirely until Duen coaxes her out for dinner where she stays stonily stiff and silent while she wolfs down her food.

Bohn doesn’t push her, yet, but he can tell Duen is getting antsy. “I don’t think she knows she’s welcome here,” he laments to Bohn on the fourth or fifth evening, Dia balanced against his thighs where he sits with his knees pulled up on their bed while he plays with her hands. 

Blue is sound asleep at Bohn’s chest, hands fisted into the front of his shirt, and Bohn strokes a palm over his back before he says, “She does.” Duen casts him a bewildered look. “She just doesn’t know what to do with it,” Bohn goes on. “Think about it; our home life is probably wildly different from the sort she grew up in.”

“Oh,” Duen whispers, audibly stricken. “How . . . How do we . . .”

“We don’t,” Bohn says evenly. “We should just keep doing what we’re doing. We wait.”

He knows that’s how it has to be, probably better than anyone, and he sees the recognition flicker in Duen’s gaze as he realizes that, too. For Bohn, it had been a slow process, one he’d mostly had to figure out for himself and figure out quickly. He’d wanted more for Ben than what his own upbring provided, but hadn’t known how to give it since he hadn’t experienced it. With hindsight, he's sure that he’d only really started being a proper parent for his son after he’d met King and had a solid, genuine example of what it was like when someone actually cared about him. His own life has been brightened by the people around him, it’s made him a better person, one who overcame the shortcomings of his childhood. Eventually, he knows, Maimai will get that too.

They just have to give her time.

And Bohn has to give her an outlet. He figures that out after one of the times she sits down with Duen to study. She’s easily frustrated, though she tries so, so hard not to show it. Neither math nor science are her forte, and she stumbles through history and literature. At best she’s passable in every field, and Bohn can tell that she understands that, too. But book smarts, he knows full well, are not everything.

At the end of the first week he finds her in her room, staring down her stack of textbooks with her teeth digging into her lower lip, and says, “Come out here and help me build the cribs.”

She stares at him, startled for a moment as he gestures over his shoulder towards the nursery down the hall. “Wha . . .”

“You used to play sports, right? So you’ve probably got steady hands. Help me build the new cribs.”

Maimai frowns at him. “Shouldn’t the doc help you with that?”

“Duen’s with the kids,” Bohn explains easily. “So you’re up. Help me build the cribs.”

He knows he’s being pushy now, but he suspects pushy might be what she needs, and after a heartbeat she grumbles and stands to trudge after him into the nursery. 

It’s a good thing that _someone_ is helping him, really, because arbitrary engineering degree or not, Bohn takes one look at the directions and feels his head spin. He must make some kind of face, because Maimai leans over to glance at them too and rolls her eyes. “It’s not that hard.”

“Oh?” Bohn says, handing them over. “Alright, kiddo, let’s see you do it if you’re so smart.”

He doesn’t miss the way she tenses up for a second when he calls her that, but ignores it as she swipes the directions out of his hands and goes to peer at the pieces he’s spread out on the floor. “Okay. This big one is part A, and this one is B, C, D-”

Bohn scrambles to take a look at where she’s pointing. “Slow down, slow down! I’m old!”

Maimai casts him a side-eye, “So? Keep up then. This one is E, then F, G . . .”

An hour and a half, and a fair amount of shouting back and forth later, the first crib is assembled successfully. Duen peeks in on them briefly, both babies in the sling across his chest before he declares that he’s going on a walk with them because Bohn and Maimai are being too loud, but other than that light scolding Bohn counts it as a success, mostly because Maimai is actually talking to him now. If yelling can be called talking. 

"Why would you buy something that complicated? Let alone _two_ of them?" She snaps when he gestures towards the box containing the second, still unassembled crib. 

"Complicated usually means safe when it comes to stuff for infants," Bohn replies easily, unperturbed. He starts pulling the pieces out of the box while she huffs, trying to remember which order she had labeled them in the first time. "Hence the childproof clasps on the cabinets I've seen you struggling with."

She casts him a truly withering look, but doesn’t respond, merely quickly glancing away again when Bohn meets her gaze unflinchingly. 

The second crib is put together much quicker, and by the time Maimai has it fully upright and set beside the other one, Duen has returned to pass the twins back to Bohn. He takes them readily, purring for awhile as he nuzzles over both of them while Duen adjusts the sling across his body. Where at first he'd always felt like he was juggling them, by now holding both twins isn't much more difficult for him than just having them in his arms one at a time. Albeit he doesn't really have the capacity to do anything else while he has them, but that's what Duen’s around for. 

"Did you have a good walk?" He coos, nosing along one of Blue's pudgy cheeks while he balances Dia at his shoulder. 

He doesn't get a reply of course, at least from the babies, but Duen says, "Blue was pretty quiet, but Dia managed to get ahold of a leaf somehow and had that in her mouth for about a minute before I noticed."

"Sneaky baby," Bohn laughs. "Are you headed out to get the other two from school?"

Duen confirms it with a nod. "You alright on your own here for a bit? Might swing by the store on the way. I was going to make som tam but Day protested this morning because it has tomatoes, so I wanted to let him pick out something to substitute the tomatoes with."

Maimai is silent until Duen leaves, her only acknowledgement of him a flustered nod when he pats the top of her head on his way out. She follows him to the foyer, but then again so does Bohn as he passes through the hall to make his way to the playmat spread out in the living room. By the time he’s gone her temporary chattiness has dried up again, and she stands by the front door fiddling with the hem of her shirt for a long while before Bohn says, "Are you going to hang out there all day?"

He knows she responds well to Duen’s gentle airs, but that hasn't done much to get her to interact with anyone else in the house. Sure, she sits still through movie nights, can be cajoled out to eat meals with them, but in the long run Bohn easily recognizes those actions as largely performative. She's not doing them because she wants to, but because she thinks she has to, as if she in any way has to earn her keep. And Bohn hates that. Her frustration about the cribs and verbal outlash over them had been as genuine as he's seen her yet, and if he has to continue to be pushy to get more of that out of her, so be it.

She gives him another rueful glare over her shoulder but plods into the living room anyways. "You know, before I met you I called you a 'pretty omega,'" she mutters as she sits down on the carpet beside him. 

"Apologies that you had to find out the truth, then," Bohn smirks. "I'm a _super_ pretty omega." She rolls her eyes, but Bohn doesn't miss how her gaze has started to fixate on where he's laid the twins out on the mat. It's not the first time she's done it, Bohn’s pretty much constantly aware of anyone who might be eyeballing his kids for any reason. But Maimai's expression isn't anything he's concerned about, it's slow as it roams over them, calculated. _Searching_. It makes his heart ache every time he realizes that, especially since he knows it'll be a few years until she finds what she's looking for in them. 

She's never once asked to hold them. 

"I thought babies weren't supposed to lay on their front," she says after a minute or two. 

Bohn chuckles, "When they're asleep, yeah," he agrees. "But until they start crawling they're supposed to spend an hour or so a day on their stomachs to help strengthen different muscle groups. It's called tummy time. They’re fine as long as they're monitored." Which is exactly what he's doing, spread out on his front as well between them, chin in his hands. Maimai hums a rather doubtful note, but doesn’t argue. 

On the mat Dia has grabbed hold of one of the many textured toys he's laid out and is slowly but determinately pulling it towards her. It’s great progress in terms of her upper body strength, and Bohn strokes a praising hand over her head. "She doesn't look like her," Maimai says suddenly. Pointedly, Bohn keeps his eyes trained on the twins. "The doc said maybe after a few months, when they stopped being so wrinkly and pruney, but . . ."

She's never once called Dia by name. The way she addresses the baby in the few times she's ever acknowledged her at all have been exactly like this, in pronouns, and on one notable occasion she'd called her, "Squirt."

"At the . . ." She swallows, the sound of it audible, and Bohn continues to patiently keep his focus on the kids, shifting over to Blue for a bit when he starts burbling frustrated raspberries, signalling an end to this round of tummy time for him. "At the funeral, your daughter-in-law . . . She said souls come back around, eventually. I thought, maybe . . ."

Ah. "If that’s true," Bohn says evenly, "I don't think it works quite that quickly. Everything takes time. _Everything_."

Maimai nods. "That's . . . That's good, I guess. If I ever meet her again I . . . I wouldn't want it to be now." 

Bohn flips Dia back over, too, scooting her closer to her brother before he sits up. "How come, kiddo?"

She winces, just barely, but Bohn doesn't comment. "I'm trying really hard," she whispers, "and the doc is a good teacher. But I think I'm just . . . I'm not a good student."

"Not everyone is," Bohn assures. He still doesn't know how Boss managed to pass his classes in college, he'd been atrocious at studying. "But that's fine, there's lots of other ways to excel. School isn't everything." For him school had been arbitrary, whether or not he'd been good at it. "I've never even used my degree."

Again, her gaze is doubtful. "I _want_ to be good at something, though," she protests. "Dia was . . . She was great at school. If she wasn't forced to drop out she probably would have been at the top of her graduating class. I was . . . I was _only_ good at sports. Like a fucking alpha stereotype," she scoffs. "Big, dumb fucking jock."

She sits back a bit, enough that she can turn away before she scrubs a hand over her eyes as if the slight distance gives her a semblance of privacy. "I wanted to be more than that, for her. For _them_. I want to be a good auntie like the doc said I could be. But I don't- I'm not even good at living with people, so how can I-"

"Who said you're not good at living with people?" Bohn snaps.

Maimai freezes, mouth half open and a hand still over one eye. "Huh?"

"Who said that?" Bohn demands. "Cause it certainly wasn't me."

The way she blanches tells him enough. It's nothing he did, of course it isn't, and the fact that she starts to recoil when he tries to move closer to her makes that even more clear. Fuck. "I'm not dragging you to dinner or asking you to sit with the rest of the family when we're all socializing to punish you, you know that, right?" He asks softly. To his dismay, Maimai just stares at him with wide eyes, frozen in place. "Duen and I," Bohn goes on, "are doing those things, trying to include you in stuff, because we _want_ to spend time with you. You can say no whenever you need to, okay?"

He remembers what it was like. Some kids, the unfortunate ones, grow up with a different code of conduct, where refusal gets you slapped, or worse, where attendance is a requirement and not a choice. Bohn spent countless nights of his own youth under that kind of hold, terrified of the consequences of speaking up. 

"You're not obligated to do anything while you're staying with us," Bohn reiterates. "But I do want to make sure you understand that you know that we _do_ want you here, kiddo. We want you to sit with us at dinner, and watch movies with us. And it would be great if you got along with the kids." He reaches over to tickle Blue's middle, earning a gurgle that makes Maimai glance towards the babies again. "But you don't have to. What's most important right now is that you're focusing on _you_ , alright? Getting better, physically and otherwise, studying, sorting your life out, whatever. Everything else comes second."

She's only seventeen, and Bohn hates how hollow she looks despite that, how tired. "I want to be good at school," she whispers eventually, every syllable hitched and wavering. 

"Alright," Bohn says. "That's a start. Duen’s already helping you with that, right? I know it's tough, but once you get accepted into university you can choose something you actually like. Music, or art, or sports." She hiccups and nods quickly, wiping at her eyes again. "Anything else while it's honesty hour?"

She stifles another sharp inhale in the heels of her palms. "I want . . . _I want to hold the babies_."

The dam breaks, it always does, and the second Bohn scoops Dia up to settle her in Maimai's arms, she bursts into full out sobs. It's not scenting, the way she buries her face against the infant, it’s solace. Bohn is careful to keep a hand on Dia's head while she does it, firm fingers making sure Maimai's grip stays light despite how hard she's shaking, how much her shoulders are heaving with every breath. "I'm sorry," she chokes out after a beat, "I'm sorry, _I'm sorry_."

She doesn't flinch back when Bohn lays a hand on her head too, only shivering for a moment as he strokes over her hair. He knows what she's apologizing for, but he also knows that any assurances he could make to the contrary would fall disastrously flat. After all, he wasn't there.

Chubby hands pat at Maimai's face, and she sniffles harshly before she lifts her head up enough to blink down at where Dia is still cradled in her arms. "Do you think she's mad at me?" Maimai sobs.

"The baby? Or . . ."

"Both."

"No. No, I don't think that at all. I think that, if you do meet her again, Dia will just be happy to see the _amazing_ sort of person you've become by then. As for this one," he moves to take one of the infant's grasping hands and wiggles it back at Maimai, "she just wants her auntie to stop crying and play with her."

Maimai hiccups and nods. "O-okay- but I . . . I don't know how to . . ."

"I'll show you," Bohn says. "If you want to, that is."

"I do want to," Maimai whispers. 

~~~***~~~

In contrast to Maimai, who always approaches the babies like they're ticking time bombs, Day has taken up staying as close to them as he can. He's moved his studying habits from the kitchen to the coffee table in the living room, and half the time when Bohn stumbles out of bed in the dead of night to feed them, Day is watching from the doorway to his own room, nervously waiting to be asked if he wants to lend a hand. 

Compared to how he acted around Del when she was born, it really catches Bohn off guard. Half the time when they'd tried to get Day to hold his sister he'd cried before even she could. But he'd been only six years old then, and Bohn’s more than willing to chalk his discomfort at the time up to age among other things, especially because Day seems so interested now.

And that's definitely what it is, an interest rather than a full fledged attachment just yet, because every time he holds one of the twins he continuously exclaims over how they smell like him, as if he still can't quite believe it. And he definitely gets flustered when they cry, quickly fumbling to pass whichever one he's holding back to either Bohn or Duen if they start. 

He _is_ getting attached though, Bohn notes with delight after a week or two when he catches Day watching them sleep, sitting like a statue on the master bedroom bed in front of the bassinets with a forgotten text book in his lap.

Still, he doesn’t really expect it when the questions start coming. Sure, Day's inquisitive enough normally that it doesn't totally surprise him, but the sheer volume of them definitely does. When one or two questions turns two or more _dozen_ in a singular evening, that's the point at which Bohn starts to wonder.

He sort of feels like he's being quizzed to be honest, what with the range between, "When will they stop eating only formula?" and "What happens if they can't burp at all? Will they get sick? People don't explode, right?" It's a lot, and after almost a month of it Bohn still isn't any closer to parsing out what Day is _really_ asking him than he was to begin with.

An inkling sparks in him though when he's watching Day play with Dia on the mat. He's a lot more relaxed than the first few times Bohn had encouraged him that it was fine to be a little more active with his siblings, but his calculated gaze doesn't match the languid lines of his body. His copy of Bohn’s protective position is spot on, Dia safely tucked beneath his front while he covers his face with his hands and peeks out between his fingers at her until she wiggles excitedly at him. But that's exactly what it is, imitation. It's the same thing he does when he's trying to learn something new, though usually it comes off as flattery towards either Duen, or someone he's admiring the work of. This time, he's copying Bohn. 

Bohn stands from where he’s been nursing Blue on the sofa, careful to do so slowly lest the movement let too much air into the nipple of the bottle before he plops down on the mat beside them. Day spares him a swift glance but no more, eagerly going back to what he was doing albeit a little more stiffly now that he knows Bohn is watching. "You're really good with them, Daylily," Bohn says.

Day tenses slightly, probably barely noticeable to anyone other than Bohn. "Oh," he whispers. "Really?"

"Really," Bohn echoes back. "I think you're definitely their favorite sibling."

Flushing, Day drops his hands to fiddle with the sleeves of Dia's onesie. Bohn lets him fall into silence, curious as Day chews on his lower lip for a few minutes. That calculated look is back in his eyes, the one that gives away just how hard he's thinking, how hard he's trying, and when he finally glances his way again Bohn finally reads a deep seated wash of anxiety in his expression that makes his stomach twist. "Do you think I could . . ." He swallows. ". . . Maybe, be good with _other_ babies, too?"

Bohn blinks, tilting his head slightly as he turns the odd phrasing over in his head. This is the real question, isn't it, the one Day has been trying to ask him for awhile now, buried beneath all the others. And when it sinks in what he means, Bohn doesn't know whether to be heartbroken or furious. 

"Yeah," he says as evenly as he can manage, "of course you can, luuk. Did someone say you couldn't?"

It doesn't have to be a physical person, Bohn knows. Day's smart, and reads too much for his own good sometimes. He wonders what sort of article he found, what bullshit study he stumbled upon to think that this was something he couldn't have should he want it. It wouldn't take much, for all the tough fronts Day puts on at school, even at home, Bohn knows his son better than anyone. His feelings get hurt easily, his resolve paper thin at times when he's already uncertain. Bohn shifts to set Blue's mostly finished bottle aside for a bit, just so he has an arm free to tug Day into his side, nuzzle over his hair and press a kiss to the crown of his head. 

Day scooped Dia up into his arms in the process, and he adjusts expertly to make sure she doesn't get squashed between them. "No one said anything," he admits quietly, just as Bohn suspected. "But I . . ." His hands are clenching, one at Bohn’s side and the other in the hip of Dia's onesie where he holds her, old muscle memory giving away his distress again. "I just wanted to figure out if I could be."

"Okay," Bohn murmurs. "Well, you are. You're really good with them, Daylily. You're attentive, and gentle, and they love playing with you. You're doing a good job." Day nods against his clavicle, clutching Dia a little tighter to him, though she doesn't seem to mind. "But you're also _twelve_ ," he reminds, ignoring Day's muttered, "thirteen next week," for his own sanity. "This isn't something you need to set in stone for years and years still."

Day huffs, though Bohn can't decide if it's in agreement or defiance, and presses his face further against him before he mutters. "But I'm good at it though, right?"

"You are," Bohn assures. "You're a good big brother. And," he adds, getting a hand under Day's chin and tilting it up until Day reluctantly meets his eyes, "if that's something you want someday, I'm sure you'll be a good dad, too. But that's a long way off, luuk. I don't want you fretting over it so much, alright? Just keep being a good brother."

Day buries his face against his neck again the second he lets go, and Bohn obligingly drapes an arm over his shoulders and holds him closer as he slowly slumps further into the embrace. It's like he's uncoiling, weeks of tension bleeding out of him in a rush until he's practically in Bohn’s lap, the twins settled between them. "I read something," he confesses.

"I know," Bohn murmurs into his hair. "But don't believe everything you read, luuk. You can do whatever the hell you want with your life. Studies like that are total crap anyways. Did you know there's all sorts of articles saying alpha and omega couples shouldn't adopt?" Day shakes his head. "Well there are. Do you think your phorh and I should have listened to those?"

Day shakes his head again, glancing up briefly to reveal a truly stricken expression at the thought. Again, his grip on Dia reaffirms itself, as if solidifying her presence against his chest is somehow grounding. Bohn smiles, "Then why do you listen to stuff like that saying people like you shouldn't have kids? You're so smart, Daylily," he soothes, nuzzling near his ear, "so kind, so sweet. And people that say that shit don't know what they're talking about. I want you to listen to the people who actually know you instead, alright? And to people that are like you, too. You can speak for yourself."

"I can . . . Speak for myself," Day repeats. 

"Exactly. Don't let people who aren't like you, who don't know you, make choices like whether or not you can have a family for you. That's up to you and you _only_."

He's not surprised when Day tears up, his cuddly boy gets easily overwhelmed, always has, especially when it comes to his own emotions. Nor is he surprised when he asks, for a third time, "But I'm a good brother?" just to have that reassurance reiterated once more. 

"A fantastic brother," Bohn purrs, kissing his forehead. "The best. Don't tell Ben, though."

He gets one of Day's rare, genuine laughs for that remark, and his heart soars.

~~~***~~~

Despite the setback of them being a little on the small side still, Bohn has both Dia and Blue sitting up in their matching seat support cushions at just over four months. The nest has been totally disassembled, the nursery in the process of being fully decorated, and the new guest room is already in regular use.

Still, Bohn tries to do exercises with the twins to keep their muscle strength up. They've hit most of their milestones, but Thara has expressed that he should continue them through their first six months at the very least, just to make sure they're in the best health. 

"Big strooooong boy," Bohn encourages as he lifts Blue's hands over his head. He tries his best to make it as fun for him as possible, letting Blue grasp his thumbs and peppering him with kisses and raspberries when he seems to get frustrated. He gets a raspberry back to that last one, grinning as Blue purses his lips and sputters his complaints at him. "I know. Fitness sucks," Bohn agrees, "but it's good for you. What if you want to play football when you get bigger? Or volleyball like your mae? You'll be pretty pissed at me if you have poor muscle strength because we didn't do these when we had the chance." He lifts Blue's arms up again. "Big gains, luuk. Big muscles. My big strong boy."

He gets Blue to stay satisfied with another half dozen reps of it before he starts to really show his displeasure, and then he hands him a set of plastic keys to gum up instead. At least his grip is much better than it was, he thinks, pleased when Blue manages to grab them without him having to place them directly in his palm. 

"Dia's turn!" He declares, rolling over to where Dia has been watching their progress with an apprehensive pout while mashing a crinkly plush ball between her hands. "Just a little bit," he soothes when she gives him a baleful stare. "Gotta keep my big girl buff."

She's still the larger of the two of them, which worries him sometimes since he's careful to make sure she's not getting more food than her brother, but Duen has continually assured him that she might always be bigger, and that it's perfectly normal and probably not even that noticeable to anyone other than her parents. He lets Dia hang on to the ball as he hoists her arms over her head, if only because it definitely keeps her happy and engaged when it bops softly against her nose as he does it. "You know," he chides when she aims as if to swat at him with it while he pulls her arms back down, "you have to actually let go of the ball to make a slam dunk. This is called traveling, and it's against the rules."

Dia brings the ball to her mouth to drool all over it when he releases her hands, and Bohn rolls his eyes. "Making the ball gross so your opponents don't want to steal it is also against the rules."

It's a relief to see them so active, big eyes gazing around at the world while they fiddle with the toys he hands them. Blue's gotten a lot more vocal recently too, trading out generic crying for forceful, sharp noises to let Bohn and Duen know of his feelings. But while they react well, seem happy, Bohn is still a little sad to note that they've yet to really appear keen on wanting to be near him just because they can. Sure, they want to be held when they're upset, and for the most part they've stopped squirming when coddled for long periods of time, but there hasn't been a point where Bohn can say with surety that they're excited to see him. Sometimes, he feels like he scents them too much, even though there's no mistaking it by now that they're his kids. They smell like him, there's legal paperwork with his name on it. He does it anyways though, first to Dia and then to Blue, cheek to cheek before he nuzzles over them and presses kisses to the tops of their heads. 

"I can smell you doing that from across the house, you know," a voice mutters behind him. 

Bohn sits up, glancing over his shoulder to spot Maimai leaning against the kitchen counter that stretches out towards the dining room table. "Jealous?" He retorts. "I can do it to you, too."

Maimai grimaces and straightens. "Gross. No. I just wanted to ask if I could go to the craft store for a few things."

Lifting an eyebrow, Bohn asks, "That's quite a little ways away. You okay to walk that far, kiddo?"

She slaps a hand to her knee and Bohn doesn't miss the mild wince that flares on her face. "Yep! I'm supposed to be walking longer distances for physical therapy anyways. Also I need to pick up the canvas prints I got done of Dia for the nursery."

Bohn hums and stands to walk her to the door, snagging his wallet off the little table beside it as he does. "Call me if it gets too tough. Your aunt will murder me if you have to get a tuneup because of something I let you do while you're over."

"Can't have that," Maimai agrees. "Can I have fifteen hundred baht to get a snack?"

" _Fifteen hundred baht_ ," Bohn gasps, a hand to his heart. "For a _snack_! I give you shelter. I give you my husband's home cooking. I give you-"

"Fine. I want it to buy a volleyball I saw at the sporting goods store."

Bohn pops open his wallet, "There we go. Honesty is key, kiddo." He hands her the requested bills, smiling when she stares back at him in shock as she takes them. "Auntie not want you to play anymore?"

Maimai fidgets, "No . . . She just wants me to wait. But if I don't start practicing now, I definitely won't make any university teams. So . . ."

"So you thought you could pull a fast one on this old dad," Bohn laments. "I see how it is."

"You're not _my_ old dad," Maimai sniffs. 

"You practically live here half the week, studying while your aunt works," Bohn points out.

"I'll be eighteen next month."

Bohn blinks, "No age is too high to let yourself have a new old dad. Now go buy a volleyball."

She hesitates, the money clutched in her hand and a flustered flush rising in her cheeks. "Uh . . ."

"Changed your mind? Want me to scent you before you go after all?"

He's not really surprised when she bares her teeth a little, reeling back. "N-no!" She's out the door in the next second, only limping on her healing leg a little when she has to duck under Duen’s arm as she goes, dodging around him on his way in with a swift, "Sorry, doc! Bye . . . _You_!"

Duen twists around to watch her go, one eyebrow raised when he turns back to Bohn. "So you've demoted yourself to just 'you' now, I see."

Bohn spreads his arms and shrugs, "Look. She basically lives here half the time, right? Since she has to be monitored to study as per her Aunt's rules. Hell, she might even move in for a year if she gets into that university she's eyeing that's close to here. So the way I see it, one day she'll slip up and call me dad, and then I win!"

"Win _what_?" Duen asks incredulously. 

"I just win," Bohn insists. "It doesn't matter what I win, as long as I win." 

Before Duen can attempt to counter that, Blue lets out an unholy shriek from the living room, and Bohn practically vaults across the foyer and the dining room to get to him. To his surprise though, Blue is still sitting calmly in his little soft seat support, bright eyed despite the scream he just elicited. Bohn scowls at him. "Oh. Okay. A jokester, I see." He leans down over him, glancing at Dia who's just blinks his way over the curve of the plush ball she's gnawing on. "You think you're real funny, huh."

"Bah," Blue agrees, holding his arms up towards him.

Bohn’s pretty sure his heart fucking stops. Duen’s hand has settled on the small of his back, a sharp inhale that mirrors his own caught in the air between them before he whispers, " _Bohn_."

Fuck. He's going to fucking _cry_. His baby finally reaches for him, and Bohn’s visceral, immediate reaction is _tears_. It takes more effort than he'd like to kneel down on the floor, his hands shaking as he fits them under Blue's raised arms and hefts him up into his hold. Blue grips onto the shoulder of his shirt as soon as he’s in his grasp, burrowing his face into the crook of Bohn’s neck with a happy little noise, and if Bohn weren't already on the floor he’s sure his legs would have given out. " _Oh_ ," he manages, choking around just the startled, single syllable. 

It hadn't really hit him before just how much he'd been waiting for this, how much he'd wanted it. His love for the twins had been instantaneous, unshakable, the same way it had formed with all of his kids. And he knows that he's been kind of just coasting by on that alone, justified in understanding that it would take time, that he could live with just being needed for as long as he had to, rather than intrinsically loved, but this is . . .

"He likes you," Duen murmurs, kneeling down beside him. 

Bohn knows he probably looks like a mess, wracked with unsteady inhales and tears in his eyes as he chokes out, "Y-yeah?"

Duen nods. "Look at him, phi," he says, stroking a hand down Blue's back as he speaks, thumb rubbing over his fluffy baby curls along his head. Blue just clings to Bohn tighter, face still buried near his neck, likely chasing that instinctual purr that's vibrating under Bohn’s skin. "He was so excited to see you. He was upset that you left the room without him. He _loves_ you."

Bohn staggers in a sharp inhale, realizing he'd been holding his breath, and twists around to where Dia is still in her cushion seat. She's dropped the ball by now, watching them with wide eyes and a fist in her mouth, but her other hand is outstretched. "You too, sweetie?" He can't help but laugh. "You jealous?"

Dia blows a raspberry at him, more than answer enough for Duen to lean over and lift her up into his arms, nuzzling their noses together before he tucks her into the crook of his elbow. "Of course she's jealous," he purrs, nuzzling at her again when she bats at his chest for further attention. "She loves us, too, don't you?" His only response is another raspberry, and he bursts out laughing. 

There are many points in Bohn’s life he knows he'll remember with technicolor clarity forever, but the casual, slow dawn of this one burns its way into his mind differently than all the others. Sometimes, he feels like he's spent half his life stuck in his own head, his own heart, looking in from the outside at situations he felt that, for a time, would remain forever unrequited. He'd been forced to love Ben from a distance, had felt terrified of loving Duen at all, faltering on how to give what he'd never properly received. There'd been a similar moment of trepidation with each of his babies, too, a brief flash of fear as he'd held them for the first time, scented them, scared out of his mind they might not know him even when it was built into their very DNA. 

He'd loved the twins without that certainty, though, days flowing into weeks and then months where everything he did was tempered with that quiet desperation. _Please know me. Please understand that I'm yours. Ask for me. Look for me. I was made for you, even if I didn't make you._

Belatedly, he wonders if there were smaller signs of this, less obvious ones, but decides that, in the end, it doesn't matter. He has what he wanted now, right here in his arms, in Duen’s, begging for more attention where he’s forever aching to give it. "Day's rubbing off on you," he tells Blue, cupping a hand to his head to rub a cheek over his hair. "You're turning into another snuggle bug on me."

"You love it," Duen smirks at him, half distracted as Dia plays with his fingers. 

"Uh, yeah?" Bohn confirms. "And? Do you think I'm _objecting_ to having not one, but _two_ kids who are obsessed with being held any chance they get?"

Duen laughs again, shaking his head. "No. I'm just happy you're happy," he grins. 

It always gives him whiplash when Duen says that, that simple statement not without its weightier meaning, the gentle reminder that, for all his current joy, the road to reach it was not without its pitfalls, its harsh realities. However, that only serves to make moments like these all the sweeter.

The best rewards are the ones he's _earned_. 

"Ew," Bohn says suddenly, "do you realize I'll be _sixty_ when they graduate?"

Duen snorts, rolling his eyes as he fits a hand to Bohn’s jaw. "Yeah. And I'll be fifty-eight. That's a pretty good age to retire, though, isn't it."

"Yeah," Bohn agrees softly, fondly, purring when Duen closes that last breath between them for a kiss. "But let's not rush. We still have so much time."  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! While I'll definitely at some point add more shorts to All The Little Things, I think this was the last big story I needed to tell for this verse. Thank so much for sticking with me for it all. And as always, comments are much appreciated.


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